What’s all the fuss about? After all the noise over Democrats’ push for a government insurance plan to compete with private carriers, coverage numbers are finally in: Two percent.

The Washington Post recently ran a lengthy story comparing the efforts of the Clinton and Obama administrations to pass health care reforms. Many liberals are anxious that Obama’s push will end the same way Clinton’s did: as dead and stinky as a beached mackerel. The Post writer, Ezra Klein, makes clear that he understands one of the causes of escalating health care costs—but misunderstands the systemic flaws that make rising prices unavoidable. He notes that “the Justice Department judges an industry ‘highly concentrated’ if a single company controls more than 42 percent of the market. By that definition, 94 percent of statewide insurance markets are highly concentrated.“

As I read C. Burke King’s Sunday Commentary last week—“Government Health Plan Would Hurt Quality, Innovation, Choice”—I wondered what health care system he had been living in until I glanced at the bottom line and realized he is the president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. King asserts that the extension of a government plan, such as Medicare for all Americans, would hurt quality, innovation, and choice. After 29 years practicing family medicine, I will have to call him on these claims. His fear is that “a government plan would destabilize the market, increase cost of private coverage, and reduce quality of care,“ and that “private insurers would not be able to compete on an un-level playing field.“