Rovner reported that “Clancy is only one of the many policy types who are trying to convince more Republicans to put expanding coverage on the back burner.” She singled out Michael Cannon, the health policy guru at the Cato Institute, which bills itself libertarian. Cannon questioned why everyone should have health insurance:
The idea that government should guarantee health insurance to everybody passes as really gospel in health policy circles, without any serious consideration, without any sort of examination of why is it that we want people to have health insurance. Is health insurance the best way to serve those goals; Could there lower cost ways of achieving those goals? People need to have the freedom not to have insurance if the marketplace is to function properly.
Rovner included quotes from supporters of the health reform law, who argued that making the marketplace function better is a “big smokescreen.” And this: she reported that GOP analysts see the argument against universal coverage as an effective political tactic that is “like class warfare.” How? “Republicans want to paint the healthcare law as requiring people who already have health insurance to help pay for those who don’t.”
There was a tiny bit of he said/she said in the pieces, but Rovner weighed the arguments, and a reader/listener came away with a clear understanding of her thesis.
A few months ago NPR released a new ethics document that aimed at ending he said/she said stories that offer false equivalence—presenting “all sides” of an issue to create an appearance of balance rather than the best version of the truth. NPR’s ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos told me the document was an “evolution” of existing policy. He said sometimes reporters had been “hiding behind the rules,” and “so long as you didn’t violate the rules it was okay…He said/she said is a perfect example.” Judging from Rovner’s stories, the document is evolving in the right direction.
It's the left-Keynesians versus the right-Keynesians in a statist tug-of-war. Nothing new under the sun for the "free and independent" press, as they challenge the centers of power. *smh*
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Fri 3 Aug 2012 at 03:05 PM
A health care system in which 30- or 50 or even 100 million Americans are left without health insurance, and a like number have ineffective (though very expensive) private insurance, is simply the most profitable for the largest number of Republican Party constituents.
Doctors can charge a lot. Hospitals too. Insurance companies can charge healthy people for coverage as long as they stay healthy, then drop them--it's a free market, right?--as soon as they develop a serious or chronic illness.
Employer-based health insurance also ties people to their crappy jobs even as their wages shrink in real terms. That reduces the pool of potential entrepreneurs, leaving the field more open to the sociopaths who game the system with dot-com bubbles and bank runs.
A socialistic universal coverage scheme is anathema not because it wouldn't work to reduce costs and increase efficiency, but precisely because it very well might.
#2 Posted by Edward Ericson Jr., CJR on Fri 3 Aug 2012 at 03:34 PM
Around the beginning of World War 2, maybe one American in 10 had medical insurance. By the time of Medicare, this figure was over six in 10. How did this happen, with all that 'turning away' of the uninsured? Since Medicare, the cost of medical insurance, like the cost of higher education, has zoomed along well ahead of the rate of inflation. How did this happen, with all that wonderful state intervention?
#3 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 3 Aug 2012 at 04:57 PM
Around the beginning of the second world war, the world was still in the depression, you paid the local doc with chickens, and your barber offered surgery with a shave.
Times changed. We don't pay docs in chicken feed nor treat every ailment with leeches. Therefore there are costs attached to the new solutions, new equipment, and new techniques of medicine.
Also, companies are more vigorous about defending their intellectual property than they were in the past. Tests and drugs now have a 'cost of innovation' attached to them as people have to pay a monopoly premium or license fee to use medical knowledge.
Things are different since WW2. Is any of this somehow a surprise?
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 3 Aug 2012 at 07:06 PM
Health insurance was born as a free market work-around in response to Gubmint meddling with markets. It came about as way to attract workers during FDR's wartime wage freeze. It would never have existed otherwise in any free market because it is stupid. REAL stupid.
You don't insure your car for oil changes or spark plugs (unless you are an idiot). You don't insure your lawn mowing or snow shovelling.
It doesn't make any sense to insure routine expenses - doing so adds inefficiency and expense.
Insuring routine medical care is a stupid and inefficient idea.
The stated goal of Obamacare of reducing costs is patently absurd. Adding a zillion bureaucrats into the routine care business cannot possibly save anyone any money.
And of course, the stated goal of expanding coverage is also silly, since employers are going to dump plans in droves and since anyone with half a brain will wait until he or she gets sick to buy insurance.
The liberals want "Somebody Else" to pay for "Everybody Else's" health care. Again, a patently stupid idea.
The sooner we gut Obamacare, the better. The sooner we demand that ablebodied adults take care of themselves and their families, the better.
#5 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 4 Aug 2012 at 10:25 AM
"What specifically are you going to do to provide universal coverage to the 30 million people who are uninsured?”
ANSWER: It isn't the government's role to make people buy health insurance or to encourage them to do so. I'm not going to do anything to force people to buy insurance. PERIOD.
#6 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 4 Aug 2012 at 10:32 AM
Yeah, because in America, being uninsured or under insured is 'a choice'.
A choice that republicans + Romney would like to see extended to Medicare recepients.
I also note that you've left unmentioned how the gubmint should be involved when it comes to sick people seeking an insurer, other than to imply these people will become leeches under Obamacare.
How do sick people get coverage when Obamacare gets repealed? Can insurers knock people off the roles like they used to under rescission? You're talking alot about the indignity of citizens forced to buy health care, how far does your libertarian spirit reach into the unsympathetic corporate boardroom? Under you, do they go back to doing much of what they want?
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 4 Aug 2012 at 10:49 AM
Thimbles gets one right: "Yeah, because in America, being uninsured or under insured is 'a choice'."
padikiller applauds: Yep!.. It sure is! You can buy cheap insurance on web from hundreds of licensed insurers. Finally got one right, Thimbo!
Thimbles asked: How do sick people get coverage when Obamacare gets repealed?
padikiller responds: They don't.
You don't get car insurance after your car crashes. You don't get homeowner's insurance after the tornado rips off your roof, You don't get life insurance after you die... And you don't get health insurance after you're not healthy.
Why can't liberals comprehend this "insurance" thing?
"Insurance" isn't "care".
Nothing is stopping anyone from getting health care. Routine visits to a "doc-in-the-box" provider cost less than a hundred bucks. Hospitals can't refuse emergency treatment. And Medicaid pays for ALL CARE for the indigent.
Everybody else should simply PAY.
The lefties aren't interested in care. They're simply after Somebody Else's money.
If somebody is stupid enough to go without catastrophic insurance, then he or she pays the price if he or she gets sick. But he or she still gets treated. Bankruptcy exists to give relief to people who make stupid decisions like this.
The talk of rescission is a dodge. A non-issue that liberals trot out to overstate their silliness. The number of insurance contracts subject to rescission is negligible and any company that acts illegally to rescind a policy faces stiff penalties and usually treble damages. State insurance boards permit complaints from policyholders to be handled expeditiously and insurance is highly regulated at the state level. If a contract is rescinded, it is almost certainly done so properly and legally.
#8 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 4 Aug 2012 at 11:54 AM