Bryan Fischer
GOP to keep worst parts of MussoliniCare - - no, no, a thousand times no
By Bryan Fischer
Here's some news to make your blood boil. Rep. Eric Cantor, soon to be second-in-command in the House, wants to keep two of the absolute worst provisions of ObamaCare. And he has the support of budget wizard Paul Ryan and the new Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy. Will the GOP ever, ever learn?
Cantor told students at American University in Washington last night that he wants to use the coercive power of the federal government to tell health insurers whom they can and cannot insure and for how long.
Said Cantor: "We too don't want to accept any insurance company's denial of someone and coverage for that person because he or she might have a pre-existing condition. Likewise we want to make sure that someone of your age has the ability to access affordable care if it's under your parent's plan or elsewhere."
Cantor wants to compel private enterprises to do business with the people the government tells them to, by forcing health insurance companies to write policies for people regardless of pre-existing conditions. And he wants the dictatorial hand of the central government to force parents and insurance companies to let children mooch off their parents' health care until age 26.
This is nothing less than the kind of shameless pandering Democrats do to get votes and get everybody to love them. It is, however, grossly irresponsible political leadership.
These are two of the provisions we railed against during the health care debate, and now they are being offered the gift of eternal life by fiscally conservative Republicans! May God help us, because it doesn't look like the GOP will.
These two misbegotten requirements will drive up the cost of health insurance for all Americans and limit access to health care. And Cantor is supposed to be one of the smartest guys in the room!
Prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to folks based on pre-existing conditions is no different than ordering an auto insurer to offer comprehensive collision coverage to a motorist after he's driven his car into a tree.
This is one of the worst provisions of MussoliniCare, since people will just wait until they get really sick and then go to some poor sap of a health insurance company and cadge a policy from the company that may well drive it out of business. And Eric Cantor wants the GOP to be the party that puts the gun to the head of the insurance company and forces them to comply.
Mitt Romney imposed this same scheme on Massachusetts, with predictably disastrous results. It does not work, cannot work, and never will work until the laws of economics and human nature are repealed.
Health insurance companies need to be free to offer insurance to anybody they want to and deny it to anybody they want to. They'll have to offer it to most people, otherwise they won't make any money. That's the way the free market works.
But every business has to have the flexibility to decide with whom they are going to enter into contractual obligations, and that decision is absolutely, absolutely none — I repeat, none — of the government's business.
It only becomes the government's business if either party reneges on one or more of the freely assumed obligations written into the contract. That's what we have courts for.
A market for hard-to-insure people will surely arise, just as hard-to-insure drivers have a market for them. The policies will be more expensive, but that simply reflects the stubborn fact that people with pre-existing conditions will have higher health care costs. It's a form of insanity to pretend otherwise, and a form of tyranny to compel a private business to eat those extra costs, or to force its healthy customers to pay for the health costs of the less healthy.
We saw just yesterday that the MussoliniCare requirement that all kids be covered until age 26 forced a home health care union — a union! — to drop health care coverage for all 30,000 of its members. The union simply can't afford the extra $15 million hit to its bottom line. So as of January 1, 6,000 children will lose the health insurance they currently have. And the Republicans want to be a part of this? It boggles the mind and beggars the imagination.
Were I talking right now instead of writing, I'd be speechless. These are the guys that are supposed to bring us back to some semblance of fiscal sanity, and they are driving up the cost of health care for most and eliminating it for others.
Whatever Cantor, Ryan and McCarthy are talking about here, it is not capitalism and bears no resemblance to the free market policies that offer the only hope we have of reviving the economy. Compelling a private business to enter into contracts with other private parties, contracts the business knows will threaten its very existence, is tyranny, plain and simple.
And telling them whom they must cover and for how long is nothing less than an unconstitutional mandate of the kind that we have been fighting in court.
This is monstrously misguided and must not be allowed to stand. Somebody grab these guys by the lapels and shake some sense into them before it's too late.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
December 1, 2010
Here's some news to make your blood boil. Rep. Eric Cantor, soon to be second-in-command in the House, wants to keep two of the absolute worst provisions of ObamaCare. And he has the support of budget wizard Paul Ryan and the new Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy. Will the GOP ever, ever learn?
Cantor told students at American University in Washington last night that he wants to use the coercive power of the federal government to tell health insurers whom they can and cannot insure and for how long.
Said Cantor: "We too don't want to accept any insurance company's denial of someone and coverage for that person because he or she might have a pre-existing condition. Likewise we want to make sure that someone of your age has the ability to access affordable care if it's under your parent's plan or elsewhere."
Cantor wants to compel private enterprises to do business with the people the government tells them to, by forcing health insurance companies to write policies for people regardless of pre-existing conditions. And he wants the dictatorial hand of the central government to force parents and insurance companies to let children mooch off their parents' health care until age 26.
This is nothing less than the kind of shameless pandering Democrats do to get votes and get everybody to love them. It is, however, grossly irresponsible political leadership.
These are two of the provisions we railed against during the health care debate, and now they are being offered the gift of eternal life by fiscally conservative Republicans! May God help us, because it doesn't look like the GOP will.
These two misbegotten requirements will drive up the cost of health insurance for all Americans and limit access to health care. And Cantor is supposed to be one of the smartest guys in the room!
Prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to folks based on pre-existing conditions is no different than ordering an auto insurer to offer comprehensive collision coverage to a motorist after he's driven his car into a tree.
This is one of the worst provisions of MussoliniCare, since people will just wait until they get really sick and then go to some poor sap of a health insurance company and cadge a policy from the company that may well drive it out of business. And Eric Cantor wants the GOP to be the party that puts the gun to the head of the insurance company and forces them to comply.
Mitt Romney imposed this same scheme on Massachusetts, with predictably disastrous results. It does not work, cannot work, and never will work until the laws of economics and human nature are repealed.
Health insurance companies need to be free to offer insurance to anybody they want to and deny it to anybody they want to. They'll have to offer it to most people, otherwise they won't make any money. That's the way the free market works.
But every business has to have the flexibility to decide with whom they are going to enter into contractual obligations, and that decision is absolutely, absolutely none — I repeat, none — of the government's business.
It only becomes the government's business if either party reneges on one or more of the freely assumed obligations written into the contract. That's what we have courts for.
A market for hard-to-insure people will surely arise, just as hard-to-insure drivers have a market for them. The policies will be more expensive, but that simply reflects the stubborn fact that people with pre-existing conditions will have higher health care costs. It's a form of insanity to pretend otherwise, and a form of tyranny to compel a private business to eat those extra costs, or to force its healthy customers to pay for the health costs of the less healthy.
We saw just yesterday that the MussoliniCare requirement that all kids be covered until age 26 forced a home health care union — a union! — to drop health care coverage for all 30,000 of its members. The union simply can't afford the extra $15 million hit to its bottom line. So as of January 1, 6,000 children will lose the health insurance they currently have. And the Republicans want to be a part of this? It boggles the mind and beggars the imagination.
Were I talking right now instead of writing, I'd be speechless. These are the guys that are supposed to bring us back to some semblance of fiscal sanity, and they are driving up the cost of health care for most and eliminating it for others.
Whatever Cantor, Ryan and McCarthy are talking about here, it is not capitalism and bears no resemblance to the free market policies that offer the only hope we have of reviving the economy. Compelling a private business to enter into contracts with other private parties, contracts the business knows will threaten its very existence, is tyranny, plain and simple.
And telling them whom they must cover and for how long is nothing less than an unconstitutional mandate of the kind that we have been fighting in court.
This is monstrously misguided and must not be allowed to stand. Somebody grab these guys by the lapels and shake some sense into them before it's too late.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
