Talk About Bad Analogies!

Talk About Bad Analogies!

Obama's health care promo in New Hampshire had him explaining the government health insurance option as competition for the private sector--and then compared the situation to UPS and Fedex, which are doing so well, compared to the post office.

Hello? The post office is a government entity, which enjoys a monopoly on first class mail delivery, and the benefit of being a non-profit entity--and the private sector is keeping them honest. A relatively clever person would ask how the government health insurance option is going to be competitive with the private sector without some unfair advantages.

I think it was Von Mises who closed one of his books about socialism by comparing the socialist goal to the post office. "The whole world one giant post office! What an alluring utopia!"

UPDATE: A reader points out that while the post office skims the cream by enjoying a first class mail monopoly, a government public option would do the opposite--insuring people that private insurers really don't want to insure, such as those with serious, pre-existing conditions. This is true. But they would also be insuring large numbers of people are unemployed, self-employed, or working for small businesses that don't have group health insurance. My guess is that the net effect would be a pool consisting of mostly healthy people, many of them young adults--but that some of the unhealthy ways might have pretty serious problems (such as cancer, AIDS, and so on). This is why a public option should include all government employees (including members of Congress), as a way of enlarging the pool with a more normal distribution.