Shocker: Co-Ops Are Heavily Dependent On Government Subsidies

If we want to see how health care co-ops might work, we need only to look at the track record of existing co-ops. The problem is, that track record isn’t very good.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a pivotal lawmaker in the health-care debate, wants to deliver coverage to the uninsured by starting up new cooperatives modeled on rural electric cooperatives that were founded during the Great Depression.
But rural electric cooperatives have a mixed track record, experts say. They brought electricity to millions of rural Americans who lacked it in the 1930s and today serve about 14 percent of Americans. But after 75 years, the rural electric cooperatives still rely heavily on federal credit subsidies, have weak balance sheets and, some studies suggest, operate less efficiently than privately-owned utilities. …
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), a critic of rural electric cooperatives, agrees with Conrad that health-care cooperatives could help provide coverage for the roughly 47 million uninsured Americans. “I want everybody covered and I want it to be affordable,” Cooper said. “Co-ops could do that. They are a time-honored mechanism for almost all of rural America. . . . They’re kind of an interesting third way, halfway between the public and private sector.”

“Third way.” Interesting choice of words, that, given that economic fascism is often described as a “third way” between public (government-run) economies and private (free market) economies. Economic fascism, in a nutshell, is where the “means of production” are privately held, but the government manages the overall economy. As opposed to free market capitalism, where there is no management, and socialism, where the government owns and runs everything.
Co-ops are, well, sort of fascist. That’s a pretty strong term to use, but they’re ostensibly private businesses that are managed (and heavily subsidized) by the government.
And given what we know about these health care co-ops the Democrats are now rallying around, they’re essentially going to be government run. They’ll be created by the government. Subsidized by the government. Managed by the government. And you’ll buy into them through a government health care exchange. They’ll essentially be the Fannie and Freddie of health care.
What’s more, once these co-ops are in place and backed by subsidies from the taxpayers, the Democrats will be free to regulate the rest of the private health care industry to death. Meaning that even if you don’t want to be on a government-backed health care co-op you’ll probably end up on one anyway as the Democrats hamstring all the other alternatives.
Your only choice will be which government-run health care co-op to be on.