Pretty clean counter-arguments from Mr. Will. My only disagreement with him is relatively minor: most people actually are too stupid to determine what a competitive health plan is. However, this is of limited consequence since the vast majority have their plans selected for them (or narrowed down) by their employers or the government.
Obama knows that even the smallest, most modest "government option" on health insurance opens the door to an almost inevitable socialization of the system, however gradually it may occur. A government option will destroy competition and grow ever larger--and the larger it gets, the more people it covers, the more voters will support it, creating a self-sustaining cycle of continuous growth. Entitlements last forever because none of their natural predators can match them--their vicious cycle of growth and influence confers immortality.
The AMA knows this and is running hard against it. Their problem is that the status quo sucks, with no good options to rectify it. Between greedy doctors, greedy lawyers, incompetent bureaucrats, and patients with no incentive to restrain costs--we spend an enormous amount on health care for results that, on the whole, are no better than countries that spend half as much and which, as a result, have a competitive advantage in business. But, you can't bring doctors under control without second-guessing them or putting them all on salary. The lawyers, at least in theory, keep a lid on the problem of incompetent, dangerous, and negligent doctors. Bureaucracies attract incompetent, unmotivated people, then fail to incentivize them properly--and are never efficient in managing complex systems. Most patients are too stupid to respond effectively to incentives even when they're in place. It's very difficult to do much about any of these four problems, and very little has been done. Obama has talked about restricting doctor's options through cost-effectiveness analysis, and about reducing legal costs and defensive medicine costs by limiting malpractice suits--a good start if he can make it happen. But, his plans will make the bureaucracy problem much worse and probably do nothing for the incentive issue.
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