Robert Reich:
I'ved poked around Washington today, talking with friends on the Hill who confirm the worst: Big Pharma and Big Insurance are gaining ground in their campaign to kill the public option in the emerging health care bill.
You know why, of course. They don't want a public option that would compete with private insurers and use its bargaining power to negotiate better rates with drug companies. They argue that would be unfair. Unfair? Unfair to give more people better health care at lower cost? To Pharma and Insurance, "unfair" is anything that undermines their profits.
Wait a second, I thought big gummint could never do anything right. The private sector is flawless and perfect and the ghost of Ayn Rand smiles down on it. How could government compete with that and why would that competition be unfair? Could it be that all this "best health care in the world" talk is a bunch of crap?
Sooner or later, someone's going to get their talking points mixed up here and make a big ass of themselves. In the meantime, we've got to step up pressure on our people in Washington. They don't know what you want until you tell them. Reform with a public option -- i.e., government-run care like Medicare for everyone -- isn't actually reform. It'll be the same thing we have now in a shiny new package.
Paul Krugman has a good explanation of why a public option is important.
