Trouble is, govt. is not profit-motivated, and what it operates has no independent future. Thus U. of Chi economist Gary Becker:
Supporters of a government-run plan claim that it will be financially self-supporting, and will provide a standard for private plans. To see how this would work out in practice, consider the postal system [italics, coloration mine], a nominally private but basically a very old government-run business. The postal system is also supposed to be self-supporting, but only recently it once again asked Congress for additional [?] subsidies to cover deficits. [It’s subsidized?]
It strains credibility to expect that a large government-run health care option will not run huge deficits. Just as part of the postal deficits are caused by government mandates, such as providing Saturday deliveries at no added cost, so Congress will also impose costly and inefficient mandates on the government health care option, in addition to other inefficiencies of such a government health care organization.
This latter is crucial. Mandates because what govt. does is wholly service-oriented, which is what makes it appealing to many people. But do they know what a drain it is and many other services are? And what happens when the money runs out?
As for the subsidy business, I confess to confusion. Cutbacks are reported, but not subsidy. But Becker is a heavyweight in these matters.
Blithe Spirit 