Sunday, June 14, 2009 - Posts
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Karl Rove argues that a "public" insurance option will cause individuals and companies to drop private insurance and switch to the "public" plan:
They'd be happy to shift some of the expense -- and all of the administration headaches -- to Washington. And once the private insurance market has been dismantled it will be gone. [E.A.]
I must be missing something--why would the collapse of private health insurance be irreversible? It can't be that hard to start a private insurance company--it's not like starting a private nuclear power company or even an auto factory. If we enact a public plan, but at some point in the future a potential market for private insurance opens up--maybe because Republicans win huge congressional majorities and decide to end government-run insurance--private insurers will spring up to make money in that market, no?...
P.S.: Rove's pet Bush-era plan to buy Hispanic votes with a giant semi-amnesty of illegal immigrants--now that would be irreversible. ...
P.P.S.: I also don't understand how a public plan would 1) lure customers by paying extra-low fees to doctors and hospitals (causing business to decide that dropping private coverage was "cost effective") while at the same time it would 2) be "far too expensive." I can see the one flaw, and I can see the other. I can't see both at the same time. ... 12:01 A.M.
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Take it away, Matt Yglesias! ... 12:00 A.M.
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Let the Boomers Die? II: Reader D emails:
When I worked in the healthcare industry several years ago there was a study that found a large percentage of Medicare costs were incurred in the last six months of life. This is not about whether you get your hip replaced or your cataracts removed. It is more about heroic efforts to keep you alive. I'm a baby boomer also. So I want the healthcare available but I don't want to languish in an ICU on a ventilator with IV drips with no hope!
My answer: Fair enough. But I want to make the decision to cut off treatment, not have it made by a cost-watching health board. Choice! The resonance with the abortion debate seems obvious. ... Both are life/death decisions. Are they both best handled by individuals and their families in consultation with their doctors? You'd think the case for "choice" at the end of life might be stronger, since the life at stake is likely to be able to participate in making that choice. ...
Update: Prof. Althouse distinguishes this kind of choice from "right to die" cases. "It's one thing to deny the choice to die, quite another to deny the choice to live." Lively comments ensue, some of them quite moving. This isn't an issue people haven't thought about. ... 11:19 P.M.
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CNN's coverage of the chaos immediately following the Iranian vote--or lack of coverage--is now a big story. Luckily, the Washington Post can put its crack media critic on it. You know, the one who works for CNN! ... He's already defending the network on Twitter. ... [via Andrew Sullivan] 10:55 P.M.
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