Obama's Health Care Plan, Part II

I wrote first about the Obama health care plan here.

Obama "took on" the insurance lobby yesterday, and revealed one of the shallowest understandings of economics, in particular the phenomenon of "crowding out," that I have ever seen out of an American president

Hat tip to Big Lizards.

Obama Confuses Corruption with Competition. So What Else Is New?

Democratic Culture of Corruption , Health Insurance Insurrections

Hatched by Dafydd

Another question that answers itself:

President Barack Obama on Tuesday squared off with the insurance lobby over industry charges that a government health plan he backs would dismantle the employer coverage Americans have relied on for a half-century and overtake the system....

"If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care ... then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business?" Obama said in response to a question at a White House news conference.

"That's not logical," he scoffed, responding to an industry warning that government competition would destabilize the employer system that now covers more than 160 million people.

Wow, that's a toughie: If the free market provides the best quality health care -- then how can feckless, inefficient, corrupt federal government drive them out of business? Here are a few possible answers:

• By jacking up taxes, administrative fees, and punishing profit on private insurance -- but not government-run health care.
• By running the government health care at a loss, forcing taxpayers to pick up the difference.
• By regulating private insurers out of the market.
• By adding so much red tape to private insurance plans that medical-care approval takes too long.
• By extorting employers to dump their private plans in favor of the government plan, upon threat of fines, audits, and denial of necessary licenses.
• By forcing doctors to charge private insurance a premium, under threat of the feds cutting off or reducing Medicare payments if they don't.
• By seizing control of companies (surely the federal government would never do that!), dumping the private plan, and signing aboard the government plan.
• By enacting legislation giving unions veto power to block any private health-care plan.
• By removing a corporate CEO and installing an Obama crony in his place.

Whew! That exercise took all of two and a half minutes.

Next question?

Also, Paul Ryan (R-WI) on CNBC on the Obama Health Plan.