I don't recall offering that as my perspective. Said with a bit of indignation.
That was my reaction when Obama said it. I almost commented on your earlier post but didn't. So that was on my mind when I replied to you.
Re the indignation, sorry. It wasn't from ire, not on my part. I find myself trying to find potential explanations for why folks come up with what they do. It's an instinct partly from my need to facilitate understanding and partly from my instinct to give people the benefit of the doubt--to make some excuse for what seems to me clearly off. So that was the excuse I came up with. I really should learn to keep my speculations re potential explanations to myself. They usually end up being distractions.
My point was quite specific. There are two reasons to assume that simply permitting the sale of health insurance across state lines without regulation at the federal level would produce worse outcome...
My point was quite specific, too. I was not arguing relative outcomes of the two approaches let alone the current approach. You brought that up. My very specific point was that the claim that the R's notion of of selling insurance across state lines was in the Senate bill was "a gross distortion." I notice that you did not challenge that point but, instead, changed the subject to comparing the R's proposal with the status quo. Having learned my lesson, I will not speculate <g> on why you might have ignored my point in favor of your change of subject.
The only thing the Senate bill has in common with the R's proposal is that each would open the door to national plans outside the scope of the individual's state regulation, a superficial similarity. In terms of purpose and ramifications, they are entirely different.
We haven't seen the regulations. Those will be developed over time. We see only the concept.
You're right, we haven't seen the regulations. But I don't think that matters. The concept that is decreed by the law specifies one plan (with three price variations) so that severely constrains the flexibility and scope of the regulations.
However regulated or not regulated, a single, standard plan is utterly contrary to the intent of the R's proposal. Further, the Senate single plan is a robust one, not quite a Cadillac but robust. Mandated excessive robustness is one of the problems with some state regulations, the ones that the R's proposal is intended to get around. Robust plans are inherently more expensive. If you want to get prices down, one approach is to offer a variety of plans and let people pick what best suits their needs an their pocketbooks, to give them a choice of something less robust if they don't need the extras or are willing to take some risk. That's what the R's are proposing. That's not what the Senate bill does.
And the concept, that specific concept, works for me.
Whether it works for you or me or not, claiming that it is consistent with the R's proposal is a gross misrepresentation of the R's proposal.
Argue with that. Not the abstract issue of good and bad regulation.
The reason I speculated about good regulation was an attempt to come up with some charitable explanation for why a smart person such as Obama or you might claim that insurance companies would inevitably end up operating out of states with scant regulation. One plausible explanation I came come up with was that those who so claim are making the assumption that robust regulation is inherently preferable.
There is quite clearly regulation which is nonsensical.
Apparently my speculation was off base. Sorry for the distraction. Especially since that now leaves me with no potential explanation. <g>
But favoring regulation to overcome the specifically anticipated social ills produced by permitting the sale of insurance across state lines without federal regulation is not one.
If health care insurance across state lines ended up looking it was headed for a race to the bottom, I wouldn't object to the feds stepping in and outlawing certain loopholes that had formed. Even better, they could set up as part of federal health care reform some oversight body to keep an how that was going. Or pre-empt problems via an interstate conference to steer things in the right direction. EPA used to do those--get the state regulators and industry in a room and come up with some collaboration. The race to the bottom isn't inevitable or even likely, IMO.
In summary, my previous post made two narrow points. One was that the claim that the R's proposal was in the Senate bill was bogus. The other was that a race to the bottom was so likely that the who notion was unacceptable. If you want to discuss the relative merits of the proposals we can do that. Just pointing out that that would be new business, outside the scope of my original comments. |
