The New York Times told readers that offering people the option to buy into a Medicare type public plan: "has become a proxy for a larger debate over where Mr. Obama is taking the country." Is that so? Many people might have just thought it was a way to ensure that people had the option to buy affordable health insurance. But, the NYT decided to frame the issue this way based on the authority of Ken Duberstein, a chief of staff in the Reagan White House. Duberstein is quoted as saying: “what’s going on here is not simply health care and the public option... In light of the auto bailout, the bank bailout, the stimulus package, the public option fight is a surrogate for how much government is too much.” The NYT might try not just accepting at face value the framing of an important issue given by a former Reagan administration chief of staff. The article also presents a comment from Senator Jim Cooper, who asserted that if a public plan offered Medicare reimbursement levels that few doctors would sign up for it. The potential validity of this assertion depends both on the size of the plan and the ability of doctors to maintain their protection from foreign competition. If large numbers of people signed up for the public plan then doctors would either have to accept its reimbursement rates or consider becoming shoe salespeople. They would not be able to support themselves as doctors staying outside of the plan. This would be especially the case if they are unable to continue to prevent qualified foreign physicians from working in the United States.
--Dean Baker
