But Don't Let Kent Conrad Read This Though!

Or he will happily use this in the committee today, I swear:

The New York Times has produced, often on its Prescriptions blog, a few useful summaries of health care systems in other countries. However, today's paper contains an editorial in the guise of news entitled, Swiss Health Care Thrives Without Public Option, which illustrates a point I've been making.

The Swiss system, reporter Nelson Schwartz informs us, provides quality, universal coverage, but thankfully avoids being "bureaucratic, socialized medicine." What a relief. The Times then invites us to view the Swiss system as a model for the US:

Swiss private insurers are required to offer coverage to all citizens, regardless of age or medical history. And those people, in turn, are obligated to buy health insurance.

That is why many academics who have studied the Swiss health care system have pointed to this Alpine nation of about 7.5 million as a model that delivers much of what Washington is aiming to accomplish — without the contentious option of a government-run health insurance plan.

The slam on a public option is both gratuitous and irrelevant, given the Swiss system. As I discussed in this post, When Is a Regulatory Scheme Equivalent to A Government-Run System?, a pervasive regulatory scheme that controls the key elements of an insurance system can become equivalent to an explicit government insurance system.

More important, you have to have at least one or the other to succeed. Our Senate isn't proposing either approach for insurers in exchange markets, but both conditions exist in Medicare. That's why virtually all of the proposals for controlling costs are focused on Medicare; without a Public Option to push cost reforms, there's no mechanism to achieve cost reductions in the Exchange.

But don't tell this to "Lying car salesman" Conrad. He will run to the dickens to say "See, the Swiss don't have a government insurance plan, and that means we don't need it either."