Marketplace of Ideas Blog

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R–Janesville) on health care reform as the government defines it (hat tip: Charlie Sykes):

Let me put it this way: having the government compete against the private sector — it’s kind of like my 7-year-old daughter’s lemonade stand competing against McDonald’s. It’s the government being the referee and player in the same game. Don’t just listen to me; listen to all the actuaries and experts that tell us that the government public plan option quickly becomes a government-run monopoly.

What happens is it is impossible for the private sector to be able to compete fairly with the public sector: the public sector plan pays so much lower prices that it drives prices up for the private sector and it forces firms to dump their employees under the public plan. One firm, the Lewin Group, is telling us as many as 120 million Americans in about three or four years will lose their private insurance and be dumped onto the public plan option. That’s not what we want to see happen.