Consumers, I say. I think most people would agree with me, and I think that given the government's role in creating markets, a government that created a market that generated surpluses for producers at the expense of consumers would not be fulfilling its end of the social contract. Producers, generally corporations, are legal constructs, and their surpluses -- economic profits -- would not be evenly distributed among employees and owners of capital. Favoring consumers on the other hand should result in a more egalitarian distribution of benefits. Fo egalitarian reasons, and since its consumers as citizens for whom the government exists, the market as artifact of government action ought to favor consumers. I don't think I've said anything controversial or stunning so far.
But the debate over the public plan and health care reform seems to implicitly challenge this premise. Republicans say, "The public plan is bad because people would get the same service at a lower price, and for-profit insurance companies wouldn't be able to compete." Given that market action ought to benefit consumers, not producers, this on its face is a positive development, not a negative one. I haven't really heard Republicans build their story from there, explaining why despite these lower prices, consumers are worse off. They have blustered about the lack of choice, but couldn't we end up in a situation in which consumers are provided their basic health insurance by the government and purchas supplemental insurance if they wish, providing greater choices in treatments? Is that so unreasonable?
I won't know what the story Republicans will tell about how reducing producer surplus (health insurer profits) for the benefit of consumers will end up hurting us until I hear someone ask the question, and I haven't heard it yet. Somehow, we have come to think of corporations as ends in and of themselves as opposed to means to an end -- our happiness, security, wealth, and health. That is not the explicit argument that Republicans make, but when your dots connecting harm to corporations with harm to consumers are sufficiently far apart and great in number, it's impossible not to wonder whose interests are most important.
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