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Health Care Public Option

Health Care Public Option

Log Cabin Republicans oppose Obama's proposed public option for health insurance.

Instituting a national healthcare plan, even without banning private insurance, would effectively nationalize healthcare regardless, because the resources marshaled behind the government program would be far greater than what insurance companies could afford, and would therefore bankrupt private insurers and allow the government to monopolize the market, thus destroying an entire industry that employs hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Moreover, a national healthcare system flies in the face of the principles of free market economics and small government that this country was founded upon and that the Republican Party continues to support, and would create an even larger government bureaucracy than exists today, which is already the largest in the country's history. These significant increases would of course be paid for by taxpayers, which would create an even greater strain on the Americans this policy purports to help.

Such an option would likely also endanger patients, because not only would one lumbering government agency be less effective than multiple American companies in handling the healthcare of the entire nation, but patients' choices in doctors and treatments would be deferred to bureaucrats bound by miles of red tape rather than left to experts in the field and patients themselves. Furthermore, monopolizing the industry would give the government immense control over doctors and would allow the government to determine the care that insurance will pay for and therefore what doctors are able to provide. Furthermore, the lack of competition among insurance companies would lead to the reduced quality of care and lack of alternative options that monopolization of a major industry naturally entails.

Thus, Log Cabin Republicans oppose this measure because, under Obama's proposed public option, rather than placing medical decisions in the hands of specialized medical experts and the patients receiving treatment, medical decisions would instead be made by government bureaucrats.