The Denver Post reports:
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is pressing colleagues to use a procedural tool known as reconciliation to pass health-reform legislation — and to include the controversial public-insurance option in the bill. …
“Much of the public identifies a public option as the key component of health care reform — and as the best thing we can do to stand up for regular people against big insurance companies,” said the letter, which so far has garnered signatures from six other Senate Democrats.
This is a terrible argument. Insurance companies are big because government shields insurers from competition. For example, a tax policy that ties use to our employers’ plans and the ban on buying more affordable plans available in other states. If Bennet wants to create an option, he and his left-wing authoritarian pals should start their own insurance company instead of one backed by the guns of government that would compete unfairly with existing ones.
