Blog 3

In "Why critics of a public option for healthcare are wrong", Robert Reich writes that “Big Pharma, the AMA, the insurers” are all against the public option because of “economic self-interest.” Reich states that the public option will be able to provide the most cost-effective option because of the large scale of the government and its ability to decrease administrative costs. The author makes many strong claims but does not cite important statistics or facts to support his claims, which makes me skeptic on the validity of his argument. I would like to agree with Mr. Reich that the public option would provide much needed competition but his argument provides too many claims with no supporting evidence. The author makes many claims of large pharmaceutical companies and the American medical association and then refutes these claims with all rhetoric and no evidence.

If the government wants to make a true “public option” and compete on a fair playing field (I emphasize this because the government usually ends up tilting the field in its own favor) with profit seeking corporations I have no problem with that but history has proven that is has almost no chance of succeeding. My next blog is related to this topic so refer to blog 4 for more evidence.