Letter to the Editor
I submitted the following letter to the editor, which appears not to be under consideration (maybe I shouldn’t have taunted them for being in bankruptcy…nah). It is in response to this editorial.
The Inquirer recently editorialized that a public healthcare option would be able to charge lower premiums because it would not be “profit-driven”. Setting aside the irony of a bankrupt newspaper complaining about the profit motive, the editorial’s sloppy thinking leaves unanswered some key issues about the public option.
Would it be expected to lose money (or merely break even) rather than turn a profit? If so, how would it maintain the large capital reserves necessary for an insurance company to operate? Would those funds come from the taxpayers? Would it be able to access the capital markets with the implicit backing of the federal government like Fannie and Freddie? Would it have special rules to allow lower capital reserves? How would this be “fair competition” as its backers claim? If it actually needs to fully fund itself by turning a profit, why would its profits somehow be palatable when the profits of private insurers are not?