Fact check for Krugman and Hillary advisor Jonathan Gruber: Mandates Don't Lower Costs

[flpoljunkie]

January 21, 2008
MANDATES DON'T LOWER COSTS

Massachusetts Officials Concede Mandates Don't Lead To Universal Coverage. "Jon M. Kingsdale, executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, the agency that markets the subsidized insurance policies...acknowledged that their universal coverage plan is not likely to be universal anytime soon. 'There's good evidence,' Mr. Kingsdale said, 'whether it's buying auto insurance or wearing seat belts or motorcycle helmets, that mandates don't work 100 percent.'"

One In Five Uninsured In Massachusetts Will Be Exempt From The Mandate, Individual Mandate Would Only Apply To "Those Who Can Afford The Premiums." The Boston Globe reported, "Interestingly, the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, the bureaucrats in charge of implementing the plan, decided that the universal individual mandate does not apply to everyone, but rather only those who can afford the premiums. Therefore, nearly one in five of the currently uninsured will be exempt from the law."

OBAMA COVERS EVERYONE UNDER HIS PLAN

Washington Post: "It Could Be A Struggle For Clinton To Find Someone Who Wants Health Insurance But Doesn't Qualify Under The Obama Plan, Because It's Not Clear Such A Person Exists." The Washington Post reported, "For people who want to get health insurance and make an effort to do so, Clinton and Obama have almost exactly the same plan …It could be a struggle for Clinton to find someone who wants health insurance but doesn't qualify under the Obama plan, because it's not clear such a person exists."

MORE PEOPLE WOULD COMPLY WITH OBAMA'S PLAN

Antos: Obama's "Health Care Plan Could Actually Have A Better Compliance Rate" Than Hillary's. The New York Times reported, "Mr. Obama's health plan could actually have a better compliance rate. The 15 million who would supposedly be left out equal about 5 percent of the population — a smaller portion than are going without auto insurance, said Joseph Antos, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a nonpartisan group."

Reich: Obama's Health Care Plan Would Cover "More People" Than Hillary's. "I've compared the two plans in detail. Both of them are big advances over what we have now. But in my view Obama's would insure more people, not fewer, than HRC's. That's because Obama's puts more money up front and contains sufficient subsidies to insure everyone who's likely to need help – including all children and young adults up to 25 years old…In short: They're both advances, but O's is the better of the two. HRC has no grounds for alleging that O's would leave out 15 million people."

CLINTON PLAN WILL NOT INCLUDE EVERYONE

Clinton Campaign Health Care Adviser: Clinton's Health Care Plan Will Not Include Everybody. "MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, one of Clinton's health care advisers…acknowledges that the Clinton plan will not include everybody. 'Any system that does not have a single payer will not have 100 per cent coverage,' he told me, when I reached him after the Las Vegas debate. 'But you can come very close.'"

Clinton's Plan Could Leave Out As Many As 4.5 Million People. The Washington Post wrote, "The system proposed by Clinton is more analagous to the government-subsidized private insurance system in the Netherlands, where roughly one and a half per cent of the population is estimated to fall through the cracks." One and a half percent of the US population is 4.5 million people.

Harvard Program On Public Opinion And Health And Social Policy's Robert Blendon: Clinton's Health Care Plan Isn't Going To Cover Everybody. "Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy 'At the end of the day…it's not going to be everybody.'"

Urban Institute's John Holohan: Clinton's Plan Won't Eliminate The Problem Of Uninsured Altogether. John Holohan, the author of a study conducted at the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank, does not believe that either the Clinton or the Obama plan will eliminate the problem of the uninsured altogether. "We would all be very happy if we got down to one and a half per cent," he said.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. The Honest Truth Is That Either Plan Has A Lot Of Unknowns

Both are untried experiments. We really don't know which will cover more.

Single-payer health care, a well-tested way to do this, would be a much better idea.

[joshcryer]

7. Their plans are remarkably similar, except Hillary wants mandates, while Obama doesn't.

The AEI is quite right-wing.

[OzarkDem]

2. Sorry, but half-baked health care reform won't work

It will make the system weaker, not stronger by creating a system that funnels public money to private insurance companies and Wall Street while forcing hospitals to keep providing free health care to the idiots who don't want to buy health insurance.

[BootinUp]

3. I guess we will never know how mandates would work

Not with this effort by Obama to discredit it. Sad.

[dkf]

5. Yup, this is why single payer is the only way.

Unless you can use the billions of dollars currently being spent on administrative costs health insurance and use it to pay for actual care services, you won't be able to bring down health care costs.

Indeed, in Massachusetts, the pool that used to directly pay for care for the poor is now being used to pay for insurance.

[OzarkDem]

10. Health care system will collapse before single payer

Time is very short, the system is under extreme pressure. Getting a universal plan in place will prevent that from happening. Single payer won't happen any time soon and we will all lose access to health care before it does.

But I suspect you already know that.

[dkf]

14. Health care system will collapse because it isn't single payer

Mandating that everyone have private health insurance only creates more profits for insurance companies.

But having health insurance does not necessarily equate to getting health care.

Indeed a person can still be priced out of the market even if they have health insurance, with copays, deductibles, and declination of services.

My sister once went hiking and walked into a tree. She up her face a bit and went to her primary care physician to fix her up and he sent her to a specialist to stitch her. Unfortunately, the specialist wasn't covered under the plan and she got charged in excess of $2000. This was 20 years ago so $2000 with inflation just for stitching up a high school kid was pretty crazy.

[joshcryer]

15. Nah, a mandate would push people to take the government insurer, which is essentially...

...single payer. Without the mandate a lot of people would chose not to be insured, and then because while healthy they're not paying into the system, when they get sick and need health care, they'll make peoples premiums go up. In other words, not having a mandate basically hurts the most responsibl people while allowing the irresponsible to have a free ride.

Obama wants to have penalties, but those penalties won't do anything unless they're ... essentially a mandate in and of themselves.

[dkf]

16. Here's an article on using the Fed health system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/business/20fedhealth.html?pagewanted=2&fta=y

It says that to accomodate a flood of new people they would probably have to change it a lot. And it is a pretty expensive product right now...a "Cadillac" if you will. After it has to be adapted it, it probably won't be good enough for our congresscritters.

[joshcryer]

17. Well, even Obama's plan calls for a federal insurer.

The only difference is the mandate. Unless Obama has no plans whatsoever to streamline the federal insurer (unlikely since it would be the most popular and least expensive option). The mandate just makes people pay into the system when they're healthy, which is the whole point of insurance.

I drive a car and don't get into car wrecks, I pay for the idiots who do get into car wrecks. Their premiums go up, and if someone wrecks into my car, I don't have to pay squat and I am reimbursed.

I have a house and don't burn my house down, I pay into the system for the people whose houses did get burned down, and I'm covered in the event my house burns down.

I pay into health insurance when I'm healthy, and it pays for all the other sick people in the system. When I get sick the healthy people pay for me, etc.

[dkf]

18. Just saying that Hillary's promise that Joe Schmoe

will get the same excellent care our Congresspeople are currently getting isn't quite true and is probably misleading.

[OzarkDem]

21. How do you know?

How do you know they won't get a similar level of care through a govt insurance program similar to Medicare?

[dkf]

22. I have a feeling that Tim Johnson type care is better than

the typical medicare patient.

But then maybe that is just me.

[OzarkDem]

20. You're confusing the private plan federal employees get and a government run health insurance plan

If the private insurer who handles federal employees insurance begins changing the plan, then switch to the govt. insurance plan (like Medicare).

Its your choice.

The private insurer who covers govt employees will be limited on the changes they can make to their plan, and under Clinton's plan, if they raise their insurance premium & copays too high (as a percentage of insured's income) they will lose eligibility to enroll members who get federal tax breaks to help purchase insurance.

[OzarkDem]

19. You haven't read any of the Dems health care reform plans

or you would understand that the concerns you have are already addressed by Clinton's plan, and to some degree by Obama's. Both offer a choice between govt insurance and private.

Now, if you choose to support no plan other than single payer, expect to see our health care system rapidly turn into a two tiered one. Hospitals and physicians will stop providing uncompensated care and only accept patients with good paying insurance plans.

Everyone else will have to get care from a rapidly shrinking system of publicly funded hospitals. Without significant change, most of those would go out of business or curtail access to care in a short period of time.

Most of us choose not to have that happen and are willing to back a plan that takes the first steps towards a single payer system and gives people and employers a choice of buying insurance from the government or private insurance.

My suggestion to you would be - if you don't like private insurance under one of the new Dem plans, don't buy it. Purchase the govt. insurance instead. Simple.

[OzarkDem]

11. Your state had a flawed plan, from the start

It was little more than corporate welfare for insurance companies from the beginning.

Clinton has learned from the mistakes many states have made. Her plan is not corporate welfare.

[Renew Deal]

4. Thanks for posting this

:thumbsup:

[joshcryer]

6. Why is Obama's website citing AEI?

[joshcryer]

8. Just read Joseph Antos' bashing of Medicare to be replaced with competitive market based...

...mechanisms. Guess he's completely discredited now.

edit: link, http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/healthcarehearings/docs/030930josephantos.pdf

AEI is a joke, though, as soon as I saw that I knew this was a bunch of bullshit. If you want actual progressive policy stuff, go to Brookings.

[OzarkDem]

12. I thought I saw that yesterday too

WTF?

[joshcryer]

13. I decided to give Joseph Antos the benefit of the doubt (not all institute people are owned...

...and controlled by who they work for). But after reading his bashing of Medicare I have to say, he does represent AEI very well.

[Yossariant]

9. Obama "fact checking" Obama!

:rofl:

Obama has been fact checked.

He lost. :shrug:

[BlackVelvet04]

23. Oh Please........

what a joke.