Journal pudge's Journal: Individual Private Insurance Would Not Be Illegal 14
Over on the public blog I saw a post that linked to a Investors Business Daily editorial which claimed a provision of the bill made "individual private medical insurance illegal."
But here's a hint: the quoted text from the bill starts out, "Except as provided in this paragraph." When you see that, it's a hint that you should read the rest of the paragraph.
If you read further, you find out the bill would only outlaw individual private health insurance that is not participating in the Health Insurance Exchange. It's right there:
Individual health insurance coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan.
Now, this is still a really big deal: under this bill you could only buy individual health insurance products by going through the government and subjecting yourself to whatever terms and conditions the government mandates (mostly outside of the legislative process, mind you) for all such products. That is scary stuff. My friends and relatives on individual insurance are rightfully worried about this, especially given that the terms and conditions are not outlined in the bill, but left up to the new "Health Choices Commissioner" (whose explicit job it would be to limit your choices).
And it is, of course, quite possible that these mandates will essentially leave you with little or no choice: all products may end up costing about the same and having about the same benefits. And many, most, or even all private insurers may decide they cannot earn a profit under the government's conditions, and drop out of the individual health insurance market. All of this is possible, and scary.
But it would not outlaw individual private health insurance.
So I pointed all this out to a liberal friend of mine, and he informed me that this has been "all over the blogosphere." Being one who does not travel the blogcube, I looked around, and it seems he was right: many right-wing sites reprinted the original false claims from Investor's Business Daily as fact.
Yuck.
So, I present the facts here.
Have a good weekend!
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
US Health Insurance (Score:1)
I kind of promised myself I would stay out of this debacle as I am yet to see a sensible debate on the issue but this is a good article (NYTimes and all)
It is a long piece
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
Why We Must Ration Health Care
"...
Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your empl
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I kind of promised myself I would stay out of this debacle as I am yet to see a sensible debate on the issue but this is a good article
I saw the piece, and the problem is he negates liberty, as many socialists do. He absolutely equates rationing by government, with rationing through the free market. That is, of course, rubbish: government rationing is by force, and denies our essential liberty, corrupting the very concept of a government that secures the our right to liberty.
USians need to choose - ration on price or volume
No, we don't need to choose those things at all. We can actually go back to a free market in health care, which we've not had in decades.
As a side note, why do you
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"As a side note, why do you use "USians"? "
To be specific and non-derogratory to any and all.
"ration on price or volume"
Unless the supply is unlimited - any market (free or not) will limit by price or volume.
Am trying to find a good academic paper on it but it will take a while. I am not an economist by trade but have worked with many and learnt this by working in a few different fully functioning essentially unregulated (energy) markets. At lower prices less goods will be offered for supply (this is just
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"As a side note, why do you use "USians"? "
To be specific and non-derogratory to any and all.
Odd that anyone would consider the correct term "American" derogatory.
Unless the supply is unlimited - any market (free or not) will limit by price or volume.
But "rationing" is not the correct word here, simply because of the implications created when the government is doing it.
How much health care should poor people get? Who decides?
If it's the government, it negates the right to liberty, which is the highest purpose of government.
Or do we let evolution do its thing?
False choice. There are many other options to help "poor people" beyond "government taking away our liberty."
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"As a side note, why do you use "USians"? "
To be specific and non-derogratory to any and all.
I find it derogatory. I don't go around calling citizens of the United Kingdom "UKians", citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia "CoAians", nor citizens of the People's Republic of China "PRCians."
USians is derogatory because is specifically used as lazy, incorrect, and therefore discourteous language in place of the term "American" as a denial of the right to use the word, which we have been calling ourselves si
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It seems to me that instead it's, if I'm using the right term, an elastic resource. In that as long as there are nursing positions to fill, people will train to fill them, as long as doctors are paid well, some people will choose the grueling extra time and debt of medical school, as long as drug discovery and medical equipment production is profitable, etc. I.e. supply will grow with demand. As long as one is not artificially limited.
whose explicit job it would be to limit your choic (Score:2)
My private insurance company already limits my choices, but I have pretty good insurance so my choices aren't that limited. Now, if I had an HMO my choices would REALLY be limited. My choices mey be more limited under the public plan, but they would likely be far less limited under an HMO. And if you have no insurance at all you really have no choices.
How limited your choices will be and how good or bad this is will depend on who is running it. Fingers crossed...
Re:whose explicit job it would be to limit your ch (Score:2)
My private insurance company already limits my choices
Sure. But a private company and government are not the same. Government cannot, for example, censor your speech based on its content (with the exception of some speech about some illegal actitivities). Private businesses can.
It's bad enough to think of a private company saying, "sorry, we can't afford under this plan to give you this, and our contract says we are not obligated to." You can try to go to another company; you can file an appeal; you can complain up the ladder; you can sue. All of these re
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So that justifies taking choices away from people who currently DO have choices?
IMO nothing justifies taking peoples' choices away. It remains to be seen whether your choices will be greater or more limited.
Sure. But the very fact that it's the government means that it's unacceptable.
The power plant here in Springfield is owned and operated by the city. It gets no tax funds, no federal or state grants that I know of, and operates 100% on folks' electric bills and power sold to private electric companies (wh
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It remains to be seen whether your choices will be greater or more limited.
Not really, not in the context of the Exchange. I can't see how we could reasonably be in a situation where government is adding new restrictions on individual private insurance plans, and we end up with more choice.
The power plant here in Springfield is owned and operated by the city.
A power plant isn't health care. One size really can fit all users of a power plant. There's little choice that needs to be made. This is my concern, more than who pays for it (although that is a concern too, of course).
It gets no tax funds, no federal or state grants that I know of, and operates 100% on folks' electric bills and power sold to private electric companies
Of course, that's not going to happen here: we are going to paying for t
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Not to mention, of course, the fact that this health care exchange and the public health option are absolutely unconstitutional
The judiciary hasn't worried about constitutionality in a long, long time. Take copyrights and patents, for example -- allowing corporations to own copyrights and patents is blatantly unconstitutional, as according to that document congress can only grant authors and inventors exclusive right. A corporation can be neither an author nor an inventor, nor does the constitution say that
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The judiciary hasn't worried about constitutionality in a long, long time.
But that is no excuse for our Congress ignoring it. Some people think that just because the Court doesn't stop you from doing it, that makes it OK. Those people are wannabe tyrants.
according to that document congress can only grant authors and inventors exclusive right
But there's nothing stopping authors and inventors from granting their right to someone else, including a corporation. That doesn't need to be explicit: it's my copyright, I can do what I wish with it. I don't buy this.
Unless, of course, you are referring to the fact that corporations often don't die, hence the copyright does
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But that is no excuse for our Congress ignoring it. Some people think that just because the Court doesn't stop you from doing it, that makes it OK. Those people are wannabe tyrants.
Agreed.
But there's nothing stopping authors and inventors from granting their right to someone else, including a corporation. That doesn't need to be explicit: it's my copyright, I can do what I wish with it. I don't buy this.
"To promote the arts and useful sciences". Yes, an author or inventor must be able to license a patent or
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it grants no rights of transfer of ownership.
Doesn't deny them either. Regardless, this is semantics, because we both agree that no additional rights should be created through a transferral, whether by process of ownership transfer or license: either way, the licensee or new owner should only be able to have the same rights as the original owner would have had.