Along with noting the health insurance industry has finally broken its silence on the GOP‘s replacement for the ACA, Kevin Drum has just the description of the so-called Cruz Amendment , the modification to split consumers into sick and healthy groups, and thus destroy the health care system:
But now, even the insurance companies are fed up. They have looked into the abyss of the newly-proposed Cruz Amendment, and they understand precisely what kind of hell their own industry would unleash on the world if it passes. Their letter to Mitch McConnell minces no words:
It is simply unworkable in any form …. would undermine protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions …. increase premiums …. would allow the new plans to “cherry pick” only healthy people …. creates two systems of insurance for healthy and sick people …. premiums will skyrocket for people with preexisting conditions …. millions of more individuals will become uninsured ….would harm consumers who are most in need of coverage.
The Cruz Amendment is sort of like chopping a baby in half: a solution that sounds appealing only to someone who doesn’t know what happens to babies who are chopped in half. And so I wonder. Did Ted Cruz understand the problems with his amendment when he dreamed it up, but didn’t care? Or did he just not bother to check with anyone who understood health policy before he proposed it? It’s the eternal conundrum: Evil or stupid?
When I was young and just out of college, I recall always getting the cheapest health insurance offered by my employer that I could, figuring the health of youth made this the wisest course. And I was right.
Within the limited context of myself.
But this sort of choice, taken over the entire population, no doubt pushed up premiums for those in need of better coverage, because by offering multiple options, the consumers naturally segregate themselves based on their perception of their private need. If you accept the proposition that the Cruz Amendment basically replicates the health care market pre-ACA, then by forcing the responsible parties to come out with the analyses showing how it leads to increasing premiums, then perhaps our extremist-fringe Senator Cruz has found a way to condemn the health care insurance industry, pre-ACA.
And possibly force us on a path to single-payer.
