Saturday, March 06, 2010
Almost fooled me....
Listening to a discussion of health care on Fox.
Cal Thomas, usually a pretty good thinker, failed to think about this one ... or else consciously deceives us:
"Obama is blaming the insurance companies for increased costs. Well, the insurance companies have already explained why premiums are going up. It's unemployment. More people are out of work, which means the risk pool is smaller, so the premiums have to go up to compensate."
Sounds good for a moment. Might even make sense in a discussion of taxes; the government's output of basic services must remain constant while the pool of payers decreases. Doesn't work in this case, because the employees who pay the premiums are exactly the same people who consume the services of the insurance companies. Unemployment means that the payers and the receivers are both decreasing, so the premium to each remaining employee shouldn't change. If the premium does increase in this situation, it means that the insurance company is taking advantage of innumeracy to gain more profit. ¶ 10:07 AM
Cal Thomas, usually a pretty good thinker, failed to think about this one ... or else consciously deceives us:
"Obama is blaming the insurance companies for increased costs. Well, the insurance companies have already explained why premiums are going up. It's unemployment. More people are out of work, which means the risk pool is smaller, so the premiums have to go up to compensate."
Sounds good for a moment. Might even make sense in a discussion of taxes; the government's output of basic services must remain constant while the pool of payers decreases. Doesn't work in this case, because the employees who pay the premiums are exactly the same people who consume the services of the insurance companies. Unemployment means that the payers and the receivers are both decreasing, so the premium to each remaining employee shouldn't change. If the premium does increase in this situation, it means that the insurance company is taking advantage of innumeracy to gain more profit. ¶ 10:07 AM
