As readers know, I've been looking for an explanation of what, if anything, "public option" actually means. I think I've finally found the right analogy:
[M]any congressional leaders of police reform insist that the votes are not there for a complete government takeover of America's private warlords and militias. As a compromise, Sen. Bill Melater, D-R.I., and others have introduced a bill that would include a public plan alongside a requirement for all Americans to buy private police protection. ...
The private security industry, however, has mobilized to oppose a public police plan in any form. "A public police plan is a non-starter," says Kay Street, the president of the powerful American Mercenaries Association (AMA). "Our system is based on using taxpayer subsidies to encourage private crime insurance companies and the mercenaries whom they hire to provide a service that could be provided more cheaply and efficiently by government. If government actually provided police protection more cheaply, the way it is done in other countries, then what would be the point of subsidies to for-profit security providers?" ...
The ultimate shape of the healthcare bill that emerges from negotiations in Congress will depend on a few swing voters like Belle Wether, D-Mo. After expressing her support for a public police option last fall, Sen. Wether changed her mind, reportedly after meeting in her office with a horde of mercenaries in horned helmets who wheeled in several wagons full of plunder. "We don't want to do anything to undermine our vigorous, free-market policeman-for-hire system," she explained the next day. "If rising police protection costs are such a big problem, then the fiscally responsible thing to do is to cut Social Security for the middle class."
Yes, that captures the state of our discourse quite accurately. Well done, progressives!
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Perfect!
'splains it perfectly.
This is a scary reality
for fire protection in some western states.
[Also seen on Common Dreams but I don't have time to blog about it: Creepy Revealing Quote from White House Staffer. Back under the bus, progressives!]
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Like I noted,
yep, it's good.
And to remind those youngsters in the audience, American insurance companies are often called "Fire and Marine" because they a) provided cargo/hull insurance and b) provided private fire protection as part of their policy coverage.
As in the Fireman's Fund ripping off someone else's distinctive fire shield from a building, and putting theirs on, so they would get the cash for putting a fire out. The only reason this stopped was the civic need to protect everyone's building was recognized. We've been in Libertarian Land; back then, it was OK for certain people to be 3/5ths of a person, and others to be worth nothing at all, because it was good business, and those folks were born losahs, right?