COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

The New York Times editorial board didn't see fit to write an editorial on Iran today. But they did weigh in on Obama's effort to destroy the American health care system as we know it.

As the debate on health care reform unfolds, no issue has caused such partisan rancor — and spawned such misleading rhetoric — as whether to create a new public insurance plan to compete with private plans.

The nation already has several huge public plans, including Medicare for the elderly (once reviled by conservatives, it is now only short of the flag in its popularity) and Medicaid for the poor.

Great. How is that Medicare balance sheet looking these days, morons? Wait. Don't answer that.

Now the issue is whether to establish a new public plan to encourage more competition among health insurers

Garbage. Why do these idiots swallow this crap? If the government gets involved in this marketplace, a number of insurance carriers, and thousands of agents, will simply pull out of the market altogether. The result will be fewer options. Not more. Less competition (except with tax-subsidized public plans on less than a level playing field, in which the true cost of coverage is masked.)

Most Democrats and some Republicans have already accepted the need to create one or more health insurance exchanges where individuals without group coverage and possibly small businesses could buy insurance policies.

These morons are too dumb for words. People without group coverage purchase health insurance every single day. I hold an individual plan myself - even though I have access to a similar plan through my employer. My risk pool is better than theirs, so I stay with my own plan. Small businesses purchase health care plans every single day.

An exchange would give the government (federal or state) a lot more power over insurers that choose to participate in order to tap a vast new market of previously uninsured people.

There you have it. These trotskyite bastards just let the mask slip. They think giving the government more power over private entities is a GOOD thing.

They are also blindingly ignorant. State regulation of insurance companies is a long tradition in this country - and a good one. The state insurance commissioners do a much better job of financial regulation, with closer accountability, than the SEC and their grubbing FINRA handmaidens.

It would determine the range of benefits that all participating plans would have to offer.

So much for offering more competition and more choices, huh?

But it gets worse than that. When government gets involved in dictating what benefits to offer, they start mandating coverage for uninsurable risks. The result is that insurance policies gradually cease to be vehicles of risk transfer, as they should be, and become nothing more than hyper-expensive, glorified discount plans.

It would presumably require those plans to accept all applicants, regardless of “pre-existing conditions.”

Unless you make health coverage MANDATORY, for all Americans, like auto insurance, and enforce it with jail time, this is totally unworkable. It becomes a factory for adverse selection. I don't even think the imbeciles at the New York Times know what adverse selection is, or why it's important. I'd love to quiz them.

There is no serious consideration in Congress of a single-payer governmental program that would enroll virtually everyone.

Who are they kidding. That's the dream. Government money always drives out private money: If the government plan is made universally available at very low cost, that is precisely what will happen, as people flee their private plans to suckle on the government tit with a giant sucking sound. It's been tried on a small scale in Hawai'i already. With disastrous results.

Nor is there any talk of extending the veterans health care system, a stellar example of “socialized medicine,” to the general public.

The Times is talking out of its ass here. The VA system can't handle its own case load. Non-service-related injuries are way down the totem pole. Vets who rely on the VA system alone don't get the benefit of competition. And scroll down for an example of just how 'stellar' the quality of care and administration of VA health care is. Just a few days ago, CBS News ran a story on how 40 different VA Medical Centers were under investigation for tainted colonoscopy procedures, putting thousands of veterans at risk for Hepatitis, HIV, and other illnesses.. My God, they are calling the VA a "stellar example of socialized medicine" on the very same day they're running this story.

There is just no end to the level of arrogance and ignorance in the NY Times editorial offices.

A public plan would have lower administrative expenses than private plans, no need to generate big profits, and stronger bargaining power to obtain discounts from providers. That should enable it to charge lower premiums than many private plans.

Dreamy. Why not fucking socialize EVERYTHING, libtards?

But I don't buy for a moment that a public plan would have lower administrative expenses than private plans. The DB plans on public sector workers alone would blow that argument out of the water. Further, much of the administrative expense in running a health insurance company comes out of HIPAA compliance. That's right... it costs millions each year just to keep up with the government's own ideas! So the government comes up with requirements, forcing the health insurance companies to spend money to comply. Then they get blamed for high administrative expenses. But government will still have the same compliance issues. If they don't, then there is no privacy in government plans.

It would also provide an alternative for individuals who either can’t get adequate insurance from private insurers

This is truly the crux of the matter. What are we to do with people who are uninsurable? But every state already has measures in place to provide an insurer of last resort. We have already addressed portability issues with HIPAA - so just because you lose your job doesn't mean you have to lose your health insurance. Yes, you do have to pay the premium, including the portion formerly paid by your employer. This is health care - the fervent, childlike wishes of libtards not withstanding - isn't free.

Further, any young and healthy worker who declines health insurance, gets sick or hurt, then blames the system for not providing him or her a health insurance plan they didn't want to support when they were healthy, doesn't deserve a health insurance plan. Let them bankrupt themselves first, then go on to Medicaid. You make health coverage MANDATORY, and enforce it, and you won't have a problem with this.

The prospect of competing with a government plan terrifies the private insurers. But in our judgment, if that many Americans were to decide that such a plan is a better deal for them and their families, that would be a good thing.

That's because you are a bunch of commie rat bastards with no understanding of where money comes from or how wealth is generated.

Innovative private plans that already deliver better services at lower costs would survive. Inefficient private plans would wither

.

Again, I ask the libtards at the New York Times with the 10th-grade understanding of economics: If that's the case, why not socialize everything?

I have an idea. Let's put a government-owned city newspaper in New York City. Let's see how the argument changes.

LIGHTER VERSIONS Other proposals are circulating that would level the playing field with private plans. They would require the public plan to hold the same reserves as private plans and sustain itself from premium income without drawing on the federal treasury.

Wonderful. Who would put up the "reserves," dipshit? Or do we just waive around some magic faerie dust?

STATE-BASED PLANS A bipartisan group, led by three former Senate leaders — Republicans Bob Dole and Howard Baker and Democrat Tom Daschle — has proposed leaving it to states to create public plans if they wish. The federal government would be able to step in after five years if a state has failed to establish an exchange with affordable insurance options. That looks like a formula for delay and inaction.

Why? Because libtards HATE the states. Their instinct is to centralize everything, all the time, and send power as far away from the people as they can. They can't get away with sending it to the UN yet, so they'll settle for Washington. Just for fun, next time you're hanging out with a libtard, ask them this question: "What does the 10th Amendment mean to you?" Press them on it. Hang on to it like a bulldog on a bone. Don't let the bastard change the subject. Progressivism is a bankrupt ideology. Force them to confront it. "Why do you think the founding fathers included the 10th amendment in the Bill of Rights?"

COOPERATIVES Propelled by a belief that no public plan could survive a Republican filibuster, Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, has proposed instead setting up private nonprofit cooperatives — run for the benefit of their members rather than stockholders — to compete with profit making insurance plans.

The presumed advantage of this approach is that cooperatives might be able to charge lower premiums because they would not have to earn large profits. Their performance, too, would be a yardstick against which to measure whether profit making plans are charging fair premiums.

Oh, wow. Geez. Mutually-owned insurance companies. What a concept! Genius!

TIGHT REGULATION Right from the start of the debate, some experts have suggested that much tighter regulation of the new insurance exchange could achieve many of the goals of a public plan.

Great idea. Because if there's anything that attracts new competitors to the marketplace, fosters innovation, and lowers administrative costs, it's tight regulation.

Regulators could insist that insurers not exclude people with pre-existing conditions or charge them higher premiums.

Yes. Because that will help control costs. We can also evoke, by legislative edict, entities called the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, too, to make children happy. I swear to God, this article looks like it was written by idealistic 10th graders - not by hard-bitten, realist journalists. But liberalism, deep down, is fundamentally childishness.

And the near-universal coverage in Massachusetts was achieved without a public plan option.

That was achieved by making health coverage mandatory, geniuses. A detail that seems to have escaped you.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: health care, New York Times, The Left