Friday, August 4, 2017

Memo to Congressional Pubs: Don't. Fall. For. It.

There's a giddiness being expressed in high-profile corners of the leftist media about Republicans deciding the time has come for a "bipartisan approach" to shoring up the nation's health-care system. The temptations to Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome seem to be beginning with a fresh look at how to subsidize insurance companies in order to offer insurance to low-income citizens. The previous way it was done was struck down in federal court in 2014, because Congress had not overtly put forth the money for them. Lamar Alexander intends to hold hearings with Patty Murray in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee about it.

It's a step in a dangerously wrong direction, as Stephen Moore points out:

Every single Democrat in Congress — even the faux “moderates” in the Senate, like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Mark Warner of Virginia — is opposed to virtually every repeal and reform measure Republicans ‎have proposed.
They are against Medicaid reforms, including any turnback to the states. They are against repealing the ObamaCare tax increases. They are against repealing the individual mandate, the employer mandate and the essential benefit package regulations.
They are against interstate competition for insurance. They are against allowing consumers to have a choice option in selecting an insurance package. They are against expanding affordable health savings accounts for more Americans.
So what exactly are the Democrats for? They want to enact “fixes” to ObamaCare that would enshrine this colossal healthcare failure into permanent law. They want more money for the bankrupt exchanges. They want even higher penalties for Americans who don’t want to buy ObamaCare policies.
They want bailout money for the insurers, with whom they are joined at the hip. And they want measures that clear the path to a single payer system, which Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and most honest liberals concede is what they hope to be the only long-term solution to the ObamaCare crisis.

If ever there was a real-world application for the hackneyed truism that one can't be a little bit pregnant, it's the realm of health care and how to pay for it. Any government money is a pollution of the free market. From the get-go, you're distorting the market value of a particular service. No one can expect anything but chaos to ensue therefrom.

This is why an accurate framing of the issue from the start was necessary - and missing.

And this is not some defense of the way the insurance company has been operating in this arena over the years. In a truly free market, they would not be able to depend on redistribution to allow them to offer products that can't hold their own in the marketplace. As LITD has said before - over and over - they'd basically offer catastrophic-care policies at prices people found appealing, and every other kind of health-related service would be transacted for the way any other economic good is bought and sold.

Don't let the wonks and bleeding hearts get to you, Pubs.

There is still a chance to repair the damage wrought by the "A"CA - but it won't happen by "reaching across the aisle."




18 comments:

  1. Lost in all this is the will of the people in this exceptional democracy.

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  2. "The people" can will themselves into bankruptcy and tyranny if they're not convinced of the folly of it.

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  3. Oh, I thought this was a representative democracy and that was part of the reason for our exceptionality. Oh well, carry on, heaven can wait, if not your postulated free market and its invisible hand that we're all still looking for in all the wrong places.

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  4. Let's try to make some sense, shall we? In what way does my position oppose a representative democracy?

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  5. I don't cite polls here any longer, because if they are not in favor of your position you call them fake news, or revert to the ole ignorant cattle argument.

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  6. Polls are one thing and viable policy is another entirely. The purpose of a venue like this is to persuade "the people" to avoid advocating bad "solutions." In other words, yes, don't be ignorant cattle

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  8. know. Wondering when all the rest of the ignorant cattle in the developed world will awaken to the beauty, if not the costs of a health care and health care insurance system like ours is and was, going back as far as the wild and free days of Doc Holliday. The smart money buys its drugs from Mexico. I hear they do some pretty good and inexpensive dental procedures down there too. Build that goddam wall like yesterday and make them pay for it like the day before.
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  9. The Gleeful Insurance companies bask in our ineptitude to resolve medical issues.

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  10. There is nothing positive about continued over charging of medical services. I think with just a little adolescent effort the two parties might find some agreement there.

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  11. In catastrophic care there is often no difference between the care of the insured and the uninsured. It could be argued those who paid for the care are those really only those entitled to extensive catastrophic care services. The dilemma is the insurer's disagree, the insured's alone do not provide large enough profit.

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  12. Michael, think of it this way: If insurance companies knew there was no governmental backstop - that is, that they had to actually compete for people's business by providing a product proven to deliver value - there would not be uncertainty as to what was going to get covered at claims time.

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  13. I agree for the most part laissez- faire suits a free democracy. I am more hesitant to think only a free capital systems will do much for remedying the health care problems. Lets think profit alone, is it better to include a growing potential market or just withdraw into early ineffective market approache?

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  14. It is the health care industry I think needs rework. How could we ever sustain an entitlement system as this? Maybe rethinking who's on who's side here helps me frame how I feel about health care. In most areas We need less government, in health care we just likely need clearer direction from regulatory bodies as much as this might hurt? There should be certain rewards for keeping to date on one's health policy. People whom whether insured or not provided work to our society also deserve a level of dignity. That is a difficult variable to put into the health care debate.

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  15. If insurance companies knew there was no governmental backstop - that is, that they had to actually compete for people's business by providing a product proven to deliver value, there would not be uncertainty as to what was going to get covered at claims time. I still do not consider human health care entirely a product, for me it is the greatest attribute of free people.

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  16. It only exists because someone somewhere has some kind of motivation to provide it.

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  17. Start the medical policy with buyer beware, if the agreed contract is not complied with it is null and void. Lets add, "All the better to decrease the surplus population" The insurer is not responsible for contract performance deficiency. Currently 70% of medical care is, Medicare... Sure lets take all this out and make it a market driven system and those with Policy health care premiums will likely rise by several hundred percent. This just does not make sense to me.

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