Whats Wrong with a Public Health Care Plan?
By Rich Tucker Using the powers of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the federal government is always eager to break up any monopoly. Unless, of course, the monopolist is the government itself. Washington makes it illegal for private companies to handle most letters, for example, because otherwise private companies such as Fed Ex and UPS would overwhelm the Postal Service with their lower prices and superior service. Remember that as the discussion over health care heats up. Some lawmakers say they want to provide health insurance to more people by creating a public plan to “compete” with private insurance. If that happens, Congress and the administration would be able to set rules that favor their public plan, as Nina Owcharenko, a top health-care expert at The Heritage Foundation, writes. Independent analyses show that employers would jettison private insurance coverage for as many as 119 million Americans, moving them into the cheaper (for employers, at least) public plan. Quality would su
