The leader of a top conservative advocacy organization believes that people who are born with congenital illnesses should pay more for health care coverage and rely on family and friends if they can’t afford their medical bills.
Appearing on SiriusXM’s Stand Up with Pete Dominick on Thursday, Dean Clancy — VP of Public Policy at FreedomWorks — insisted that insurers should charge sicker people higher rates so that younger and healthier beneficiaries don’t have to subsidize their coverage.ThinkProgress
Top Conservative Lays Out Obamacare Alternative: Insurers Should Just Charge Really Sick People More
Igor Volsky
Republican health care alternative: "God is my death panel!"
ReplyDeleteThe Oregon Health Plan used to ration health care to avoid spending crazy amounts of money on the terminally ill in their last days. They used a cost benefit sort of analysis where by disallowing payments for very expensive treatments for a few dozen patients a year that weren't likely to succeed, they were able to cover hundreds more people with insurance that would have gone without any coverage and likely died from their chronic diseases.
ReplyDeleteIt was a healthy political debate for the public to have and to consider very basic issues of resource distribution, fairness, and the reality that we all have to place dollar values on life.
In someways, it is too bad that as a nation we didn't have those sort of discussions when Obamacare was being crafted rather than the Democratic rhetoric and Republican scare tactics.
MMT folks would probably resort to their argument that we can afford any amount for healthcare to troll the argument but it misses the point of making value judgements explicit and making people understand the contents of the law, how the law works and why it works the way it does.
"MMT folks would probably resort to their argument that we can afford any amount for healthcare to troll the argument"
ReplyDeleteWell, you don't spare lives when you don't need to, it comes to that.
If you are not in a war economy or something worse, you just don't create arguments AND act upon them because it's a philosophically healthy thing.
I understand what you are saying, but still, NO.
"the reality that we all have to place dollar values on life."
ReplyDeleteSounds like a stiff undertaking.
All seriousness aside, I'm hearing that before you are approved for any medical procedures under ACA, you must first undergo a wallet biopsy.