Paul Ryan’s honesty problem: How he just exposed GOP’s true Obamacare intentions

[DonViejo]

Golden boy inadvertently admits GOP doesn't agree insurers should be prohibited from discriminating against the ill

BRIAN BEUTLER

Democrats are jumping all over Paul Ryan for telling Bloomberg TV that if Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act, they won’t reimplement Obamacare’s popular requirement that children can stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until they’re 26.

I don’t have a full transcript, but the quote in this Washington Post story actually reveals a great deal more about Republicans’ post-Obamacare health policy than their possible opposition to insuring young adults.

“If you look at these kinds of reforms, where they’ve been tried before — say the state of Kentucky, for example — you basically make it impossible to underwrite insurance. You dramatically crank up the cost. And you make it hard for people to get affordable health care.”

People who follow health care reform closely will correctly note that there’s nothing new here. But for those who don’t, Ryan’s focus on underwriting, not an allusion to so-called “young invincibles” is the key tell. Because underwriting is the main mechanism insurers used to practice price and coverage discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.

Before the ACA, most states didn’t guarantee coverage to the ill, or prohibit price discrimination against them. Ryan’s correct that guaranteeing coverage and prohibiting price discrimination is a recipe for much higher premiums, but only because he omits the individual mandate, which ensures that state risk pools will be actuarially balanced. Leave out the mandate, and the insurance industry will likely end up existing to sell very costly health plans to sick people.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/04/04/paul_ryans_honesty_problem_how_he_just_exposed_gops_true_obamacare_intentions/

[Skinner]

1. People on DU who oppose the mandate run into this same problem.

The requirement that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions and the individual mandate are two sides of the same coin. They go together. You can't have the first without the second.