Rants & Reasons

In two recent posts, here and here, I speculated about why some Democrats and all Republicans oppose a government administered health insurance plan (the public option) that would inject some healthy competition into markets when polls show 70% of the public favors it.

Paul Krugman hypothesized that the opposition was driven by legislators from small states in which the insurance markets were dominated by one or two large firms. They don’t want the competition and can influence legislators to vote against it.

Yesterday, we received confirmation of Krugman’s hypothesis.

Via Zachary Roth at Talking Points Memo:

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country’s insurance markets are defined as “highly concentrated,” according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that’s led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

Far from healthy market competition, HCAN describes the situation as “a market failure where a small number of large companies use their concentrated power to control premium levels, benefit packages, and provider payments in the markets they dominate.”

As Roth says:

Defenders of the status quo on health care like to point out that a public option will destroy the system of robust free-market competition that currently exists.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), speaking earlier this month on Fox News, called President Obama’s plan the “first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known.” A public option, Shelby added, would “destroy the marketplace for health care.”

The larger question is why the media reports conservative rhetoric about free markets with a straight face. It should be apparent to anyone who is paying attention that modern conservatism is a protection racket for big business monopolies. The rhetoric of conservatism that praises freedom and choice generates a “moral sheen” for naked self-interest.

One of the enduring mysteries of our time is why anyone thought these people had moral integrity.

Tags: competition in health care markets, conservatism and moral values

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 6:11 pm and is filed under Health Care, Politics, Watching the Conservatives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.