President Obama made the derisive comment, “If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality healthcare, if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government – which they say can’t run anything – suddenly is going to drive them out of business [under his government healthcare scheme]? That’s not logical.”
Well, maybe it’s because private insurers can’t always expect the taxpayers to bail them out when too-generous and inefficient plans end up costing the companies more than they can collect in premiums.
Maybe it’s because private companies are constrained to figure the long-term possible costs of seriously ill customers and increasingly expensive new medical technologies before they underwrite high-risk customers and customers with existing conditions, then charge .appropriately high premiums in order to stay solvent.
Maybe it’s because private companies cannot count on making future customers and taxpayers pay for the excess costs incurred today.
And maybe it’s because private companies cannot make some customers (taxpayers) pay more just because they are better off, in order to subsidize those who are less well off.
Only government can get away with that.
