Greg Mankiw BS on national healthcare

He claims that a single-payer type public option is no different than a nonprofit group setting up a healthcare plan:

But if such a plan were desirable and feasible, nothing would stop someone from setting it up right now. In essence, a public plan without taxpayer support would be yet another nonprofit company offering health insurance.

Well, lemme see, the purchasing and price negotiation power of the whole U.S., potentially, versus the small number of members of a nonprofit.

He then claims it would eventually need public subsidies, just like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Well, no, or at least not for those reasons. National health insurance doesn’t buy up subprime mortgages.

Finally, Mankiw gets to the bottom-line conservative bogeyman. They’re afraid of real competition in health insurance:

A dominant government insurer, however, could potentially keep costs down by squeezing the suppliers of health care. This cost control works not by fostering honest competition but by thwarting it.

So, big is OK for Microslob, but not for healthcare, just because it’s not privately owned? What bullshit.

Meanwhile, at the WaPost, its copy editors win the prize for misleading headline of the year, claiming “sniping among liberals” endangers any healthcare reform.

No, it’s sniping BY liberals at centrist neo-somethings like Kay Hagen, Ben Nelson and Sen. Betty Crocker, Dianne Feinstein.