McCain's Health Care Plan: Reverse Robin Hood

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
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This article explains why, if John McCain gets his way, a whole lot of sick folks are going to find it harder than ever to afford or even qualify for health insurance.

McCain argues that different states' regulations "prevent the best companies, with the best plans and lowest prices, from making their product available to any American who wants it." Although he hasn't given details, his supporters say that he favors an approach, endorsed by President Bush and championed by McCain's Arizona colleague John Shadegg, that would allow insurers to choose the state laws under which they are regulated. (I e-mailed the campaign about the specifics of McCain's approach and didn't hear back.) An insurance company that chose to be regulated under Arizona law could sell policies in New York without following New York rules. Arizona, like most states, lets companies charge what they want to people who are sick—or simply deny them coverage altogether. Under Shadegg's bill, insurers wouldn't even need to pick up and move their operations; it would be enough to file some paperwork with a state insurance commissioner and pay that state's relevant taxes.

If enacted, this proposal would cause a shift along the lines seen in the credit-card industry. Like the Citibank of old, New York insurers would have little incentive to continue doing business under New York's laws. Insurance companies can make bigger profits by offering different policies to different people based on separate assessments of risk rather than charging everyone the same, as a state like New York requires. An insurer operating under Arizona law would be able to offer healthy New Yorkers a cheaper policy than an insurer working under New York law that has to price policies the same for everyone.
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In other words, insurance companies would have greater freedom to choose their customers, and discriminate between them. Healthy people would be offered cheaper plans, while those with pre-existing conditions would pay more, or be denied coverage in some cases.

With the individual market for health care, the libertarian argument fails on its own terms: Sick people can't get coverage they can afford. It's as though the rafts are reserved for people who already have life preservers. Americans with pre-existing conditions—cancer, asthma, diabetes, and the like—would need to pay even more than they do today. Through no fault of their own, more of them would end up without insurance. Meanwhile, insurers would improve their own profits by offering targeted policies to people with the fewest health expenses. As with the history of credit cards, it's Robin Hood in reverse.
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And, perversely, it would drive up total health care costs for the nation as more people would forego cost-effective preventive care only to end up at emergency rooms later.
Apart from the obvious injustice, this approach could add to spiraling health costs. The sickest 10 percent of Americans are already responsible for 70 percent of the nation's health expenses. When more such Americans go uninsured, skip checkups, and land in the emergency room, they end up costing taxpayers more.
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I e-mailed the campaign about the specifics of McCain's approach and didn't hear back.
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so its speculation at this point

The whole "health care will get to choose which laws to obey" was a dead giveaway.

Edited to Add: It wouldn't surprise me at all if McCain had a dumb health care plan since in his day leeches could be bought 100 for a penny.
 
Puppycow said:
In other words, insurance companies would have greater freedom to choose their customers, and discriminate between them. Healthy people would be offered cheaper plans, while those with pre-existing conditions would pay more, or be denied coverage in some cases.
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Which is exactly how insurence companies are suppose to work. I fail to see why I care. I certainly fail to see how insurence companies should take a profit hit to save the rest of us from a rise in ER visits that will likely not happen.
 
CaptainManacles said:
Which is exactly how insurence companies are suppose to work. I fail to see why I care. I certainly fail to see how insurence companies should take a profit hit to save the rest of us from a rise in ER visits that will likely not happen.
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McCain should care. If you're running for President in an era where health care costs and availability is a big issue with many voters, this kind of idea is not something you want to be viewed as supporting ... if this is what he's supporting.
 
I find it extremely difficult to believe that's the plan he's supporting. That would be a huge political liability with that being one of the top voter concerns right now.

I'll reserve judgment until he fleshes it out.
 
Pookster said:
McCain should care. If you're running for President in an era where health care costs and availability is a big issue with many voters, this kind of idea is not something you want to be viewed as supporting ... if this is what he's supporting.
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So, what you're saying is you have no reasonable criticism of the idea, but there are so many unreasonable people out there that this could hurt McCain? All the more reason to think McCain is the person to vote for, I guess.
 
CaptainManacles said:
So, what you're saying is you have no reasonable criticism of the idea, but there are so many unreasonable people out there that this could hurt McCain? All the more reason to think McCain is the person to vote for, I guess.
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What I'm saying is ...

McCain should care. If you're running for President in an era where health care costs and availability is a big issue with many voters, this kind of idea is not something you want to be viewed as supporting ... if this is what he's supporting.
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Hope that clears it up for you.
 
CaptainManacles said:
Which is exactly how insurence companies are suppose to work. I fail to see why I care. I certainly fail to see how insurence companies should take a profit hit to save the rest of us from a rise in ER visits that will likely not happen.
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Heath insurance companies should operate so that only the wealthy and healthy can get coverage and therefore access to health care?
 
The conservatives on this board are putting forth the best argument for government funded health insurance I've ever heard.

They're right. Since sick people will never be profitable to cover, private insurance companies shouldn't have to cover them.

Of course, having some kind of human compassion, we're not going to simply stop there and say they should die. Thus, government should step in and fill the gap. It's the only way.

You can't expect the free market to solve a problem when there is no profit to be made.
 
Spindrift said:
Heath insurance companies should operate so that only the wealthy and healthy can get coverage and therefore access to health care?
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Insurance is a way to reduce risk, not a bottomless bucket of free money. If you only start paying into the system after you're sick, or you're not paying the same as other people with the same risk, then you're not reducing risk, you're just looking for free money.
 
David Wong said:
The conservatives on this board are putting forth the best argument for government funded health insurance I've ever heard.

They're right. Since sick people will never be profitable to cover, private insurance companies shouldn't have to cover them.

Of course, having some kind of human compassion, we're not going to simply stop there and say they should die. Thus, government should step in and fill the gap. It's the only way.

You can't expect the free market to solve a problem when there is no profit to be made.
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That's not how the free market works. Most socialists seem to have a problem with this false diachotomy. If you feel compassion for these people you are free to provide them with health care yourself, or get together with other people who feel the same and do so. There is nothing in capitalism forbidding you from doing so. Capitalism will provide anything that someone somewhere has the means and motive to provide, whether that motive is greed or compassion. I just don't see where you get the idea that if other people don't feel the compassion that you do, that you have to force them at gunpoint to be compassionate. Especially when the benefit to humanity of that compassion is dubious at best, and more a matter of left-wingers ignoring the reality of limited reasources.
 
CaptainManacles said:
That's not how the free market works. Most socialists seem to have a problem with this false diachotomy. If you feel compassion for these people you are free to provide them with health care yourself, or get together with other people who feel the same and do so. There is nothing in capitalism forbidding you from doing so. Capitalism will provide anything that someone somewhere has the means and motive to provide, whether that motive is greed or compassion. I just don't see where you get the idea that if other people don't feel the compassion that you do, that you have to force them at gunpoint to be compassionate. Especially when the benefit to humanity of that compassion is dubious at best, and more a matter of left-wingers ignoring the reality of limited reasources.
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What's astonishing is that you actually believe this when it comes to health care.
 
CaptainManacles said:
Yet no matter how many people point out this reality you ignore it and fail to be able to come up with any counterarguement.
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Counterargument? The fact is the US spends far more per capita (both public and private) on health care than any other western country, yet we don't live as long and have far higher infant mortality rates.

You want to keep this up why?
 
Especially when the benefit to humanity of that compassion is dubious at best, and more a matter of left-wingers ignoring the reality of limited reasources.
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You believe the sick should die, so that they won't conserve your resources.

See, this isn't a difference of policy; this is the fact that you're a toxic human being.

Welcome to ignore. People like you are the reason most terrible things happen in the world.

Please keep in mind the Membership Agreement and do not use personal attacks to argue your point.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Lisa Simpson
 
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WildCat said:
Counterargument? The fact is the US spends far more per capita (both public and private) on health care than any other western country, yet we don't live as long and have far higher infant mortality rates.

You want to keep this up why?
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What exactly is that a countarguement to?

Does that prove that capitalism forbits private charity?

Does that prove that reasources are infinite?

I don't see which of my points you're seeking to disprove here.
 
David Wong said:
You believe the sick should die, so that they won't conserve your resources.
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I never said that. But I suppose if someone is dellusional about one thing they will be deluusional about a lot. Your inability to differentiate between simple things like pointing out the reality of limited resources and wishing for another person's death is probably related to the kind of conclusions you come to.
 
CaptainManacles said:
What exactly is that a countarguement to?

Does that prove that capitalism forbits private charity?

Does that prove that reasources are infinite?

I don't see which of my points you're seeking to disprove here.
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Sometimes different kinds of goods can be provided more efficiently in different ways. I love capitalism for most things we need.

One example is roads. Do you think we would be better off if we switched from our socialist system of providing roads to a capitalist one where each road is privately owned and you have to pay tolls to use it? This would be less efficient because, for one thing, it would require millions of toll booths and people to man them. Going from A to B would also require more time and hassle. Instead we have public roads funded by taxes. It's just more efficient that way.

So lets keep capitalism for things it is most efficient at delivering and think about the best system to provide other goods. There are many different models out there that seem to work more efficiently than the US model.
 
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