A few days ago, a blogger using the pseudonym Von posted the following defense of the Republican alternative to health care reform. It seems he quite liked it because, among other things, if you measure it by the right yardstick, the alternative would lower costs for more Americans than the Democratic plan without increasing taxes, and it would address reform via incremental changes, instead of introducing sweeping changes.
I am highlighting here some of the best responses to his post, the ones which I found amusing and to the point.
Of course, what von fails to mention is that the lower premiums would result from changes that allow the insurance company to cover fewer things than they are currently required to cover.
I could buy a really cheap policy if it only covered gall bladder surgery performed in July.
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It's not just a matter of getting people to "have" insurance, the insurance has to be worth a damn, otherwise people are just giving money to insurance companies and still losing everything they have...
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Von,
I wish you and Andrew would learn one simple lesson: the moment you identify medical malpractice "reform" as a part of a health care solution, you brand yourselves as nothing more than the worst sort of republican hacks, the rest of whose arguments are unworthy of any attention.
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A conservative radio talk-jock has compared people with preexisting conditions and thus no or very expensive insurance to drivers with DUI convictions and thus higher car insurance premiums. If one thinks that these two situations are morally equivalent, then you'll like the GOP bill.
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We'll file this one under, "Von understands only first order effects, and doesn't want to evaluate incentives when it comes to anything other than taxes."
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the 'anti-recission' part contains the exact loophole that insurance companies use today to rescind, i.e. "fraud" like misspellings on forms, forgotten 'preexisting conditions' ("you did not tell us that you had nausea one day in 1st grade and pimples in 3rd grade, you maliciously concealed that you had a bloody knee after soccer on July 7th 1962 etc. and now you expect us to pay the treatment for the Lyme infection you got from that tick last Wednesday? Be grateful that we do not sue YOU")etc.
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And, finally, my favorite comment, on choosing "the right yardstick":
I am also grateful to finally know that all discussions and disagreements can be smoothed over by simply finding a different yardstick. That really helps.
There are more comments to the post, which are well-worth reading if you click the link at the top of this post and have a few minutes to spare...
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