Against The Current

by Patrick Appel

Julian Sanchez really doesn't like the health care bill:

I understand, and am sympathetic to, the argument for moving toward a more genuinely marketlike system.  I understand the argument for single payer. I understand the arguments for different kinds of hybridsbaseline public provision with private coverage as a supplement.  I don’t understand this at all, and I don’t understand who (but an insurance company) could be happy with it.  Progressives and conservatives are both obviously unsatisfied, but you’d at least expect that the part progressives are pissed about would count as a victory for conservativesa move that concedes some important value to them.  Yet I can’t see any way that it is: The plan sans public option is not one whit more “free-market,” and arguably less so, to the extent one can make such judgments at such a distance from the genuine article. It just shifts some of the subsidy from the government to profit-seeking firms that can hire lobbyists.  Awesome.

The Wire rounds-up various defenses of the health care bill sans public option.