Compare and Contrast

Andrew Samwick:

Government bureaucrats don’t reduce costs. Market competition reduces costs. The challenge for health care reform is to get the market competition into the places where we want it — providers and insurers competing to deliver better services at lower prices — and out of the places where we don’t want it — insurers competing to insure only the lowest risks and providers gaming the government reimbursement systems to earn the highest profits.

Susan of Texas:

Government might possibly keep [one] safe and therefore the billions wasted are money well-spent. [One] graciously permits the government to police [one’s] bar-hopping, repair the roads [one] drives on, clean [one’s] water and deliver it to [one’s] door, remove [one’s] bodily waste, treat it, and release it far from [one’s] view.

The government hauls away [one’s] garbage, keeps [one’s] lights on, pumps natural gas into [one’s] water heater, for far less money than it would cost if [one] had to do it on [one’s] own. It keeps food manufacturers from poisoning [one], and inspects the restaurants [one] visits, the buildings [one] lives and works in, the cars that whizz by [one] on the freeway. It created the internet [one] works on, and much of the medication and vaccines [from which one] has benefited. It educated most of the people who fix [one’s] dishwasher, [one’s] car, [one’s] hair, [one’s] dog. All of that is perfectly okay. But health care for people drowning in rising premiums?…[T]here the benefits must stop, there the line must be drawn.[emphasis mine]