Tennessee's Option | Editorial | Memphis Flyer

by letters@memphisflyer.com

Congress hasn't yet begun the lengthy process of bargaining out the differences between House and Senate on the actual formula for health-care legislation. But, miracle of miracles, the Democratic majorities in both chambers now seem committed to inclusion of a so-called public option. What that phrase means is not that the government will "take over" health care, as various Republicans and tea-partiers maintain. Nor will the public option, as proposed, come anywhere close to being the single-payer system — aka "Medicare for everybody" — that some liberals have insisted on.

It's more akin to a downscale equivalent of the U.S. Postal Service, existing more as a last resort than as serious competition for the entrenched health-insurance companies. Just as the Postal Service has been no threat to FedEx and UPS, whatever minimal alternative the federal government would establish by way of a basic insurance option would hardly endanger Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Humana, or the rest of the big boys in the health-insurance field.

What it might do is A) provide an additional incentive for those companies to improve their business models; and B) be something of a brake on skyrocketing costs. And that's all it is meant to do.

As unveiled on Monday by Democratic majority leader Harry Reid, the Senate's version will contain a further reassurance to sincere conservatives with legitimate concerns about the erosion of barriers between the private and public realms (though it is hard for us to imagine what could be more legitimately "public" than making universally available the means for a healthy citizenry).

As currently proposed, the Senate bill would allow states to opt out of the public option if they chose. Presumably, other, less controversial aspects of the legislation — guaranteed portability, elimination of restrictions on pre-existing conditions, and the like — would still apply everywhere. What's the catch? There is none. All those ideologues who have conjured up the phantasms of "death panels," physician scarcity, and inferior "socialized" medical care could see the issue put to a fair test.

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