The president claims he has "no interest in putting insurance companies out of business," but that is exactly what will happen if the government forces them to expand the services they cover while simultaneously preventing them from charging higher fees, especially if the expanded pool of beneficiaries includes many of the least healthy individuals.
But maybe President Obama thinks insurance companies will survive simply because he'll force a whole new group of Americans to become customers. The president now says he'll require all Americans to carry health insurance -- something he said he was opposed to during the presidential campaign. He implicitly admits that many people who don't have insurance at the present time could afford to buy it if they chose; but for those who can't afford it, he still insists on a "public option." But despite the president's assurances that "the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects," there is no way those premiums could pay for the level of care he is insisting be provided.
He claims that "by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits, excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers." Putting aside the president's apparent misunderstanding of the concepts of overhead and profit (the latter is what's left over after deducting all expenses, including overhead and salaries, from revenues), what government subsidized or quasi-government-run agency has managed to keep costs down while providing improved services? The U.S. Postal Service? Amtrak?
The president is beginning to sound like one of those late-night TV ad pitchmen. But no matter how many times he tries to repackage his product or promises the whole thing comes free, Americans aren't buying what he has to sell.