Comment & Debate
Karl Rove. “How to Stop Socialized Health Care” Wall Street Journal. June 11, 2009: “Advocates say a government-run insurance program is needed to provide competition for private health insurance. But 1,300 companies sell health insurance plans. That’s competition enough. The results of robust private competition to provide the Medicare drug benefit underscore this. When it was approved, the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would cost $74 billion a year by 2008. Nearly 100 providers deliver the drug benefit, competing on better benefits, more choices, and lower prices. So the actual cost was $44 billion in 2008 — nearly 41% less than predicted. No government plan was needed to guarantee competition’s benefits.”
Joseph Lieberman: “Secondly, we don’t need it. There’s more than 350 companies, maybe more than that, selling health insurance. There’s going to be a lot of competition for health insurance once universal health insurance comes.”[1]