yesthattom: (Default)
yesthattom ([personal profile] yesthattom) wrote2009-09-08 07:53 pm

The birthers, the anti-healthcare reformers, etc. etc.

Reasoning hasn't worked. We are dumb to reason with them because their goal isn't to have a constructive debate, it is to destroy the conversation so that there is no progress.

What we really should do is yell at them, "If you hate it so much, why don't you move to France!?!?!?"

Maybe that will confuse them.

[identity profile] dballing.livejournal.com 2009-09-09 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)
And if they write their contracts in that fashion, then people will stop paying them money and they'll go out of business. Those people will then have the ability to go to the public-option the left is bandying about as Manna From Heaven.

People aren't idiots and don't need to be coddled. If "BigInsuranceCo" starts screwing people over -- when there's an option of a public-run insurance company -- people will simply stop paying that insurance company money and use the public-option company.

If the gov't can pass laws so it can run its public-option insurance provider any way it darn well feels like it, why shouldn't the competition have the same capabilities?

[identity profile] edhorch.livejournal.com 2009-09-09 03:40 pm (UTC)(link)
People are more ideologically driven than that. The current system is broken, but a large chunk of the population is literally screaming to keep things the way they are, because they're convinced that any change at all would be for the worse.

In the scenario of a deregulated private industry and a public option, they'll take whatever crumbs the corporation throws them rather than go over to the evil gummint. Logic has nothing to do with it.

To answer your question: The government can run its public option any way it wants because its primary motivation is to deliver health care. The private insurance industry does not have that luxury because its primary motivation is not to deliver health care, but to deliver profit to its shareholders.