Many Americans agree: 55% of respondents to a recent CNN poll think the U.S. health-care system needs a great deal of reform. Yet 70% of Americans are satisfied with their current health-care arrangements, and for good reason—they work.No, you dumbass, 70% of Americans are satisfied with their current health-care arrangements because they aren't sick. Almost any system works fine for them.
Laffer goes on to offer a prescription for the problem that is calculated to bring joy to the heart of every insurance company executive:
A patient-centered health-care reform begins with individual ownership of insurance policies and leverages Health Savings Accounts, a low-premium, high-deductible alternative to traditional insurance that includes a tax-advantaged savings account.Individual ownership of insurance policies???!!! Of course! If only we can increase the ability of insurers to cherry pick the healthy and deny coverage when someone gets sick, everything will work out just fine.
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"70% of Americans are satisfied with their current health-care arrangements because they aren't sick."
ReplyDeleteIgnoring, for the time being, your implicit assumption that large numbers of these people will be dropped like a hot potato the minute they get sick, the same argument holds for people happy with their socialized medicine -- they aren't sick yet.
"If only we can increase the ability of insurers to cherry pick the healthy and deny coverage when someone gets sick, everything will work out just fine."
Can you not think of any way to deal with this problem that doesn't involve making us all wards of the state?
It is not an assumption. The CEO's of the biggest health insurance companies testified before congress that they couldn't control costs without the ability to rescind coverage. Since we can be confident that they are not going to rescind anyone who pays more in premiums than they have to pay out in claims, we can be equally confident that they are only rescinding the policies of the people who are really sick.
ReplyDeleteI wish there were a solution that could satisfy right wing paranoia, but I doubt that there is one. Some things require government solutions.