The plan for the federal government to enter the health insurance market got a boost yesterday after members of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee expressed concern that an earlier version of the bill did not do enough to harm their future competitors.

“Private insurers were coming off unscathed,” said committee member Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat.  He worried that people working in private insurance “...do quite well – too well, frankly.”

Liberal members of the committee stoutly opposed a provision that would have allowed doctors to negotiate with the government over how much they would be paid for their work.

To make sure private citizens would not succeed too much in the same business government officials themselves plan to enter, the bill was modified to enhance the market power of the proposed public option insurance company.

Liberal members succeeded in altering the bill so that government officials would unilaterally determine payments to doctors for treating people covered by public option insurance, as officials currently do in the Medicare program.

If backers of government-run health care say private insurers have too much influence in Congress, imagine the political clout of an insurance company that is run by Members of Congress.  As private companies go out of business and employers transfer workers to the government plan, the only recourse for public option patients who are denied medical care will be to write a letter to Congress.

A good name for the government plan might be Public Option Insurance Company of the United States (POICUS), managed by the Social Commission for Reform, Equality and Wellness of the United States (SCREWUS).