Friday, June 30, 2017
Basic fallacy
The basic failure of Romneycare is being missed by both "sides" in the current pointless donnybrook.
The ADVERTISED purpose of Romneycare was to bring the people who were using ER instead of doctors into the insurance pool. Insurers charged more "because" they were now handling and pooling those people. In my case, Group Health's premium went from $300 a month to $500 "because" they were now charging me for pregnancy, drug addiction services, and child dental care, which I could not conceivably need or use.
Basic fallacy 1: Those ER-using people were ALREADY in a pool. Hospitals and doctors and clinics have ALWAYS charged wealthier patients extra to cover free services to poor patients. This has been going on for CENTURIES.
Basic fallacy 2: Romneycare DID NOT SHIFT the location of the pool. Hospital and doctor bills DID NOT GO DOWN. Insurance bills DID GO UP "because" those patients were supposedly now in the insurance pool instead of the hospital pool.
What really happened is simple. Patients who had been using the ER continued using the ER because it was now EVEN HARDER to see a real doctor. Hospitals continued pooling the expenses of those poor patients as they had ALWAYS done. Insurers made tremendously larger profits for providing exactly NOTHING to ANYONE. NOTHING to the payers, NOTHING to the non-payers. NOTHING.
¶ 8:37 AM 
