Everybody's doing it

Talking about healthcare, that is.

My old friend Jacob, whom I have not talked with in person for years, wrote a nice short little healthcare post on his blog recently, prompted by a nasty head cold. I appreciate his lack of hysteria or over-partisanship. Overall, he makes sense to me.

However, the public option makes me queasy. Not because of the government taking over healthcare...they may be able to do a perfectly adequate job. I have a child covered by Medicaid and have not had any complaints. Rather, my issue is with the arguments for it.

How is adding a government competitor to the marketplace going to be "competition?" The market works when competitors are on a level playing field. The government can never be on the field with business. Government is the stadium, the rules committee, the groundskeeper, and the officials. Those things are incompatible with a simple "competitor."

The result of adding a public option as an alternative to private insurance is nearly impossible to foretell. As Thomas Sowell keeps telling me, the real effect of policy is rarely the same as the intent. So it may end up being good, but I distrust centralized decision-making enough to doubt it.

More competition makes me happy. Government competition worries me.