Kausfiles : "Public Option": The Centrist Alternative to Government Control?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/08/25/public-option-the-centrist-alternative-to-government-control.aspx
interesting way to sell the public option

1) Obama sells the "public option" as a way to "keep the private insurers honest." But the converse effect might be more important: the private insurers in the "exchange" would keep the "public" plan honest. Sure, in this marketplace the government plan will probably get the lion's share of customers. It will offer more security, for one thing. But if it starts to provide lousy service, or excludes too many treatments, the private plans might start to lure some of those customers away. Private insurers would provide an escape valve--an "exit"--unavailable in single-payer government monopoly. The obvious analogy is to private "charter" schools competing with public schools.

2) Likewise, if the public insurers managed succumbed to cost-bloat--if all the people who washed the laundry in hospitals became unionized, for example, and politicized government plans blithely passed the giant resulting bill on to their customers (not wanting to anger the SEIU and other good Dem supporters)-- the private sector might underbid the public plan and 'bend the cost curve' down! Again, that's something that probably wouldn't happen in a single payer scheme; and

3) As discussed, "public option" might help avoid having every "we won't pay for this treatment" decision become a constitutional issue in a way a universal, single-payer entitlement couldn't.

come on gop, private health insurance and public options will keep each other honest.