Can you explain why you believe that R&D levels will settle at a suboptimal equilibrium? It seems odd to claim that a monopsonist public health plan would drive R&D to suboptimal levels when the individual participants of the public health plan are the very people likely to benefit from optimal R&D funding.

You’re assuming the Postal Service’s primary purpose is to compete with FedEx and UPS; that’s not the case. The Postal Service foremost exists to give all citizens access to mail services, especially those who may live in locations that the private market for mail delivery might not want to serve– say, rural North Dakota.

A public health insurance plan would (or at least should) serve the same goal: provide a service to citizens that the private market prefers to ignore. Millions of people want insurance but simply can’t get it– because of pre-existing conditions, for example. Theoretically, these people could devote all their economic effort to paying exorbitant rates for insurance, but I’d argue that the state has a compelling interest in assuring citizens don’t pour all their economic resources into buying health insurance; it undercuts prosperity.

More simply: I don’t believe healthcare is a right, no– but we’re at a point where it makes more economic sense to treat it like a right anyway.

And by the way, the Postal Service will come to your house, pick up a piece of mail, and send it anywhere else in the country generally within three business days, all for 42 cents. Try getting UPS or FedEx to take two extra days time in exchange for charging that low rate. It doesn’t suck.