The free market

Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander added his voice to the chorus of those clamoring that a public health plan is the most unjust thing ever.

As part of President Obama’s push to reform health care, he has made it clear that he supports creating a public plan that would compete with private health insurance plans. In response, the health insurance lobby group AHIP has insisted that such competition would be “potentially lethal” to their industry.
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“It’s a big problem,” Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) said. “It’s like putting an elephant in the room with some mice and saying, ‘Okay fellas, compete.’ There wouldn’t be any mice left after a while.”

Let me see if I have this right. If the lean, mean, private sector, what with all their innovation and awesomeness, was forced to compete with big, bloated, inefficient, government in a market based solely on quality of service, cost, and coverage, the private sector would get so thoroughly trounced as to negate their entire industry? Big insurance companies (which are now comparable to a mouse) can't hack it against the government in the free market? I thought business beating government in every way was the GOP's 11th commandment.

"Insurance company profits are more important than better health care for you. The American people must be protected at all costs from better and cheaper health care!" sounds like a winning argument to me. You and Nelson keep flogging this horse, we'll get someone else to fire up the "SOCIALISM~!" band.