Nationalized Health Care and Economic Fallacy

Written By: Sheldon Richman  |  Posted: Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

It takes a discussion of the role of government in health care to really bring out the economic illiteracy among the politicians and commentariat. The long list of fallacies they have uttered about markets and government is truly stunning.

Take competition. President Obama, after several unsuccessful attempts at selling his plan to redesign 15 percent of the U.S. economy, turned to a "competition and choice" pitch. All he sought to do, he said, was to make the health-insurance market more competitive. He actually wanted to set up markets, called "exchanges." One of the competitors he envisioned was a government insurance plan, known as the public option. (He waffled about this as the political winds blew back and forth.)

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