• Bloomberg View: Get used to Obamacare as “a Trojan horse for conservative health-care reform”

      November 26, 2013 at 7:00 am
      Austin Frakt

    In a new column at Bloomberg, I suggest that even liberals should accept some aspects of conservative health reform. You’ll regret not reading it! If nothing else, it’ll give you something to say about health care policy to both your conservative uncle and your liberal sister-in-law at Thanksgiving.

    @afrakt

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      Health Policy
      Bloomberg View, conservatives, health reform

    • by Anonne on November 26th, 2013 at 11:13

      Yes, but already reading the comments is painful. I have got to stop doing that.

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    • by Floccina on November 26th, 2013 at 14:22

      If there’s an obstacle here, it’s politics. 7

      You can say that again! Politics plays off the rational ignorance of the voters. Like the myth that employers pay for the insurance.

      I do not know if it is conservative or not but the employer mandate really needs to go. Drop the employer mandate and the PPACA becomes much more rational. Then can address the tax advantage of employer provided insurance.

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    • by Matthew on November 26th, 2013 at 15:48

      Read the comments on that post.

      Imagine how silly it will seem writing again that it’s liberals who need to listen to ideas about reforming the ACA.

      .

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    • by Cardinal Fang on November 26th, 2013 at 16:07

      You mention selling insurance across state lines. That was a conservative proposal, but is it still a conservative proposal? Pre-ACA, if insurers could have sold across state lines, they could have sold skimpy insurance from unregulated State A in demanding State B, evading State B’s more stringent regulations.

      But now, how much good would that do? All states now have to cover essential benefits under the ACA. In the current environment, how much of the difference in premiums is because of generous state regulations, and how much is due to regional differences in health care prices? If I, a Californian, bought insurance from a Minnesota insurance company, that insurance company would still have to pay expensive California doctors and hospitals for my care. So why would it be any cheaper? Maybe a little, because they wouldn’t have to cover chiropractic and other woo-woo stuff, but I doubt I’d see premiums that were much cheaper.

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      • by Sean Parnell on November 26th, 2013 at 23:02

        There is no such thing as “unregulated state A.”

        That said, I tend to be skeptical of the ability of interstate sale of insurance to do much. Because insurance today is network based, it’s hard to see an insurer in Minnesota building a network in California that is going to appeal to too many people. Maybe in some population areas that cross state borders (Quad Cities in Iowa/Illinois comes to mind), and I’d suggest the entire state of Rhode Island. Aside from that, unless we return to indemnity insurance and the old ‘schedule of benefits’ type of policies (which I think I’d welcome), then I don’t see interstate sales having anything other than a modest impact.

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