No Lauer You Got it Wrong

Newsbusters quotes Matt Lauer in an interview with Howard Dean trying to define the health care public option. He says:

MATT LAUER: Let, let's start by making sure people understand exactly what we're talking about when we say this public option. This is a government-run insurance agency that would give people greater choice, some say break the monopoly held by the private insurers and, thus, drive down costs. Is that fair?

How can anything so ignorant come out of the mouth of somebody who styles himself as being informed? First, he displays an ignorance of the word Monopoly. The 's' at the end of his word insurers should tell him there is no monopoly. While there are some dental insurers in the list to ignore, ehealthinsurance.com has a long list of health insurance companies:

(long, ugly list moved to comments for aesthetic reasons)

Hardly evidence of a monopoly. What Matt Lauer misses in his quest for the forest (due to so many trees blocking his view) is that the Public Option instead of breaking any monopoly, will most likely create one leaving Government Health Insurance the only insurer standing. While real life insurers must contend with the hard constraint of the necessity of bringing more money in than they actually distribute in order to survive, the Public Option will have no such constraint. They just go to the taxpayer and say "Oops, this costs bunch more than we thought and we need more money".