Myths of the Public Plan

(By Nina Owcharenko, The Heritage Foundation) - It's a critical week in Congress on the health care reform front, and members are ramping up the rhetoric for one of the sticking points -- a government-run health insurance plan that would "compete" with private insurers.

"I believe [a public health plan is] the only way we'll drive down costs," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., recently told the Buffalo News. Like other Democratic members and the Obama administration, Gillibrand insists a new public health plan modeled after Medicare, which is facing insolvency and piling up trillions in long-term debt, would bring in savings that private insurers can't achieve. The House Tri-Committee and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bills both create a new public plan modeled on Medicare.