The Obama Administration and members of Congress are pushing legislation to set up a government-run health care system.

• The government-run system would operate in competition with private health insurance that is commonly provided by many employers to employees and their families.
• Such a government-run system would compete with private health insurance on an uneven playing field, with the capacity to set prices artificially low and subsidize them with taxpayer money.
• The government-run plan could decimate employer sponsored health insurance – the backbone of our nation’s health care system – potentially impacting coverage for 160 million Americans.
• Government-run plans control costs by underpaying providers and creating bureaucracy.
• Cost estimates for legislation based on a new government-run plan are consistently above $1 trillion.
• Health care reform and the government-run plan will be paid for by new taxes and costs imposed on health care providers, insurers, individuals and businesses; reduced payments to health care providers; and, in some cases, ballooning deficits. Private insurance costs will rise.

A government-run plan is the wrong approach because it is fiscally reckless. The plan would mean new taxes and a backdoor premium that will make health care costs higher, not lower.

• The costs of government-run health care are likely to balloon out of control. History tells us that government-run entitlement costs tend to quickly increase.
• Costs associated with other programs like Medicare and Medicaid have consistently outgrown initial projections.
• Businesses and taxpayers will be stuck paying for new health care entitlements and the government-run plan through higher fees and taxes – costs we can’t afford at a time when our economy is facing real challenges. Congressional leaders are considering reduced payments to health care providers as well as new taxes such as:
• Taxing small businesses that do not or cannot afford to provide their employees with health insurance the equivalent of 8% of their payroll.
• Taxes on individuals who have high-value health insurance plans (so-called “Cadillac plans") will hit middle class Americans.
• Taxing individual and small business income above a certain level, which will hurt small business and, because the taxes are not indexed to inflation, cost the middle class hundreds of billions of dollars in the future.

A government-run plan leads us down the road to total government control of our health. A government-run health insurance plan will undermine employer-sponsored coverage and is the first step toward a government takeover of health care similar to Europe and Canada, with fewer covered procedures, shortages of physician and surgeons, and more government bureaucracy.

• Liberal policy advocates have been clear that they believe a public option is the first step toward single-payer health care.
• "[He said] a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business. Well, my single-payer friends. He was right." – Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, (D-OH)
• "Someone said to me once [the government option] is a Trojan horse for single payer, and I said it’s not a Trojan horse; it’s just right there! I’m telling you, we’re going to get there. Over time, slowly, we’ll move away from employer based health care." – Dr. Jacob Hacker
• “I think that if we get a good public option it could lead to single payer and that is the best way to reach single payer… I think the best way we’re going to get single payer, the only way, is to have a public option and demonstrate the strength of its power.” – Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA)
• Health care reform should build on what works, and fix what’s broken. A government-run plan won’t fix the health care system. It would decimate the health coverage that employers voluntarily provide to 160 million Americans – and ultimately expose everyone to a Canadian-style program as private insurers get “squeezed out” of the market.
• Research shows that eight in 10 American workers are satisfied with their employer-provided health care.

A government-run plan is bad for patients.

• Other countries with government-run plans oversee care, create bureaucracy and underpay providers. Ironically, rather than controlling costs, physician shortages and bureaucracy will swamp emergency rooms, placing people seeking health care in the most expensive settings and increasing costs.

A government-run plan just makes those with private insurance pay even more.

• The government-run plan will pay less money to doctors and hospitals, as it already does for programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and hundreds of billions of dollars in reductions to Medicare and Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals are proposed.
• Health care providers can be expected to make up these losses by shifting costs to patients with private insurance. This means people with employer-sponsored coverage – if private insurance is not completely put out of business – can expect to be forced to pay more money for their health care. Further, employers can be expected to have less incentive to offer private plans to employees.