With all the controversy over the proposed public option for health care reform, It is important to note that we already have public options in other areas. Take education for instance. There is a well entrenched public option known as public schools. Those who want the private option can send their kids to private schools. The public option educates every child at tax payer expense. No child is charged individually. Poor children whose parents are taxed less get to go to school with children from more prosperous families who pay more. Since most public schools are financed primarily with local property taxes, renters with lots of children get to go to school for free while their landlords subsidize their schooling. This is not only socialism where everyone pays according to what they make; it's communism - from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs.
Public options and private options stand side by side in many areas. There are public colleges and private colleges. Their are public police and private police (security guards). There is public transportation and private transportation (private jets, for instance). There are public book stores (libraries) and private book stores (Barnes and Noble, for instance). There are public parks and private parks (resorts and country clubs). Generally speaking, those with lots of money prefer private options and those with less money prefer public options. In some areas (fire protection, for example) there are few private options readily available. Fire departments are almost totally socialized if not communized although private fire departments are starting to spring up in wealthy enclaves. They will save a burning house even if it belongs to a poor person who doesn't pay any taxes. No one gets excited about communism when it comes to the local fire department. Of course, some fire departments are run by volunteers usually in rural areas.
So why are some people so excercized over a public option in health care? Isn't health care more important than education? Those with lots of money can always buy gold plated insurance policies - those that provide them with catered meals from 5 star restaurants when they have to go to the hospital. They can choose to have hospital rooms with all the amenities equivalent to a 5 star hotel. They can have manicurists, pedicurists, masseuses - the full on spa treatment. This is possible for those who can pay. Having a public option for health insurance does not limit the luxuriousnes of a hospital stay for those who can pay. So why do they begrudge poor people and middle class people at least basic health care at a reasonable price? Basically, because they don't want to share their immense wealth with the poor needy folk. 70% of the world's poor people are women and children, but this makes no difference to them. They adhere strongly to the principle that what's theirs, no matter how ill-gotten, is theirs and governments don't have a right to take it away from them and give it to someone more needy, that they worked hard for it. Well how hard do health insurance CEOs actually work to earn $400,000 per week? That's pretty hard work, I'd say.
From Health Reform Watch:
Perhaps a slight bit of context is in order, however: it has struck me that Aetna’s Ronald Williams received $24,300,112 last year. That’s $467,309.85 per week. That’s a house. Maybe not a house that Mr. Williams would live in, but a house nonetheless. The man makes a house a week. And interestingly enough, if Mr. Williams were to eschew the purchase of a house on any given week and instead look to deposit the money in a bank– in order to remain FDIC insured (up to $250,000)– he would actually need to open more than one account–every week. Lest we lament the fate of the other CEOs on the list, in 2008 Ms. Braly had to get by on $189,311.76 per week, and Mr. Hemsley had to somehow manage on $62,327.73 per week (but perhaps he was able to save a little from last year when he made $253,164.02 per week).
The point is that rich people don't earn what they get paid through hard work. They earn it because they are in a position to take it. They earn it by virtue of their position. There is no moral equivalence or relationship between the amount of work that they do and the amount of money that they make any more than there was a moral equivalence between the amount of work Louis XIV did and the amount of money he made. Bill McGuire of United Health Care took home over a billion dollars in 2006. That's over $500,000 an hour considering that there are 2000 work hours in a year. Did he really work that hard in order to make $500,000 an hour? Of course not. He didn't work any harder than an eighteenth century English lord or a seventeenth century French king. The idea is not to work hard but to be in a position to command that kind of money. It's the modern equivalent of feudalism and the super wealthy are today's lords and kings while the rest of us are modern day peons and serfs.
To be paid in accordance with one's work is socialism. To be paid in accordance with one's profits is capitalism and to be paid in accordance with one's needs is communism. Therefore, when people talk about how hard someone worked to earn what they got, they're talking about payment in a socialist economy. I'm tired of hearing the cliche - hard earned money. For health care CEOs, what they earned was based on profit not hard work.
Therefore, I'm proposing an expansion of the public option into other areas. Why shouldn't there be a public option for food, for example? The technology of food production is well known. Let the government provide a public option that would not only compete with the available private options, but, more importantly, provide jobs for people that the private sector is not providing. Additionally, public option food industries could see to it that the food they produced was actually fit for human consumption and wasn't laced with pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones and antibiotics. Mature technologies can easily be replicated by public entities that can produce products cheaply and offer competition to the private sector and provide jobs for the unemployed. The private sector's goal is to eliminate jobs; the public sector's goal should be to provide them and to provide more affordable products. Private water companies want to privatize the water supply which until recently was something that was totally in the public sector. Well if they want to compete with the public option for water, let them. Just don't let them monopolize a resource that is necessary for basic survival. They will soon lose interest if they have to compete with a public option.
Let there be a public option for fast food which is an immense profit center. Let there be a public option for TV sets, for automobiles, for furniture, for building materials. In some areas private industry will outcompete the public option. So be it. Especially when it comes to innovation and entrepreneurship, I would expect private enterprise to outcompete public options. But lest we forget some of the greatest advances in science have come from government laboratories. In other areas especially where private profits are immense and especially in mature industries, the public option will outcompete the private option. I understand that in Sweden one of the largest fast food chains is or was publicly owned. Also all the liquor stores are publicly owned (Systembolaget). Let public options compete with private options in all areas of the economy. That will not only bring costs (and hence profits) down, but also it will provide more jobs than will be provided in sectors of the economy which are entirely privately owned.
Let 1000 public options bloom! Why should the private sector have a monopoly?
