Ann Coulter on government control: We need a free market in health insurance
Last week President Obama said the private sector is doing fine." This was not reassuring to those of us who suspect the Democrats havent the first idea what private sector" means.
He did not help matters by becoming lachrymose over the suffering of public-sector employees: Where were seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. … And so if Republicans want to be helpful if they really want to move forward and put people back to work what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments. …"
When Democrats say the public sector is suffering they mean public-sector employees have half the unemployment rate of the rest of the country 4.2 percent compared to 8.2 percent.
Obamas monumentally idiotic statement has led his media defenders to recycle Mitt Romneys alleged gaffe" from several months ago when he said: I like being able to fire people who provide services to me."
But that was not a gaffe at all except as deceptively edited by the media to end after the word people." (Only Donald Trump enjoys firing people and by the way people love watching Donald Trump fire people.)
Far from a gaffe Romneys actual sentence is the key to understanding the nations health-care crisis which happens to be exactly what he was talking about.
Nearly every product you can think of has gotten better and cheaper in the last 20 years because of market competition: cell phones television sets computers food delivery airline tickets (constrained by the cost of fuel) express mail and on and on.
There arent a lot of restaurants serving lousy food or dog walkers who lose your dog because theyd go out of business pretty fast if they provided rotten services. Theyre not the only game in town.
But you know what is the only game in town? The government. Only with the government do we continuously get worse service for a higher price.
Take away the ability to fire people and you have airport security public schools Veterans Administration hospitals the Postal Service General Motors and Pinch Sulzberger the New York Times family scion.
Health insurers may technically be private companies but they are required by law to cover a slew of services making them an extension of monopolistic government. (Similarly the old AT&T was a private" company but in reality it was just a government-run monopolistic phone company providing no choice poor service little innovation and obscenely high prices.)
In most states you cant choose a health insurance plan that doesnt cover gambling and sex addictions psychological counseling speech therapy and prenatal care even if you plan on never having children.
Health insurance companies dont need to compete for your business theyre all offering the same product anyway. Moreover because of government regulation concerning how health insurance is taxed most people arent choosing their insurers. Their employers are.
As a result insurance companies have become outrageously unresponsive to both patients and doctors. Insurance companies need only concern themselves with satisfying government regulators and corporate purchasers. Meanwhile doctors have to please only the insurance companies which dont particularly care how patients are treated as long as its cheap.
This is a third-party-payer problem or as the proverb goes He who pays the piper calls the tune." All third-party-payer systems are disasters. The customer is trapped forced to pay for something he doesnt want with no one to complain to and no possibility of taking his business elsewhere.
An example frequent travelers will recognize are the online discount hotel brokers. These can be great unless you arrive at a hotel and theres no WiFi or theres massive construction going on or your room isnt available until four hours after check-in time. But youve already paid the full price to the booking company.
If you had paid for the room yourself you could walk away and find another hotel. (Even if you used a credit card you can reverse the charges because again credit card companies would go out of business if they didnt refuse payment for scams.) But if you booked through a third party the hotel tells you Sorry take it up with Expedia."
Ironically Romney is proposing that all Americans have the same ability he has to hire and fire insurance companies and doctors. The rich already can do this. Why cant the rest of us? We hire and fire our own appliance stores pet groomers restaurants hairdressers and computer companies. Why not health providers?
And why are the media so desperate to avoid that conversation?
We need a free market in health insurance which Congress could accomplish with a one-page bill stating There shall be interstate commerce in health insurance." Once we were allowed to purchase health insurance across states lines prohibited by law today everyone would be buying insurance from companies based in states such as Utah which have the fewest mandates about what health insurers must cover.
Insurance companies would be responsive to us the people buying their services and not the government or corporations. Most people would choose to buy insurance only for what insurance is intended for catastrophes while paying for regular checkups themselves the same way we pay for our own cell phones computers baby sitters manicures and everything else thats been getting better and cheaper unlike all government-regulated services.
Doctors would then have to be responsive to us not to our insurance companies. Nothing improves the quality of a service like being able to fire the people providing it. The media dont want you to think about that so they edit Romneys remark and call it a gaffe."
For better service right now for example the American people need to fire Barack Obama and hire Mitt Romney.
Ann Coulter on government control: We need a free market in health insurance
Last week President Obama said the private sector is doing fine." This was not reassuring to those of us who suspect the Democrats havent the first idea what private sector" means.
He did not help matters by becoming lachrymose over the suffering of public-sector employees: Where were seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. … And so if Republicans want to be helpful if they really want to move forward and put people back to work what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments. …"
When Democrats say the public sector is suffering they mean public-sector employees have half the unemployment rate of the rest of the country 4.2 percent compared to 8.2 percent.
Obamas monumentally idiotic statement has led his media defenders to recycle Mitt Romneys alleged gaffe" from several months ago when he said: I like being able to fire people who provide services to me."
But that was not a gaffe at all except as deceptively edited by the media to end after the word people." (Only Donald Trump enjoys firing people and by the way people love watching Donald Trump fire people.)
Far from a gaffe Romneys actual sentence is the key to understanding the nations health-care crisis which happens to be exactly what he was talking about.
Nearly every product you can think of has gotten better and cheaper in the last 20 years because of market competition: cell phones television sets computers food delivery airline tickets (constrained by the cost of fuel) express mail and on and on.
There arent a lot of restaurants serving lousy food or dog walkers who lose your dog because theyd go out of business pretty fast if they provided rotten services. Theyre not the only game in town.
But you know what is the only game in town? The government. Only with the government do we continuously get worse service for a higher price.
Take away the ability to fire people and you have airport security public schools Veterans Administration hospitals the Postal Service General Motors and Pinch Sulzberger the New York Times family scion.
Health insurers may technically be private companies but they are required by law to cover a slew of services making them an extension of monopolistic government. (Similarly the old AT&T was a private" company but in reality it was just a government-run monopolistic phone company providing no choice poor service little innovation and obscenely high prices.)
In most states you cant choose a health insurance plan that doesnt cover gambling and sex addictions psychological counseling speech therapy and prenatal care even if you plan on never having children.
Health insurance companies dont need to compete for your business theyre all offering the same product anyway. Moreover because of government regulation concerning how health insurance is taxed most people arent choosing their insurers. Their employers are.
As a result insurance companies have become outrageously unresponsive to both patients and doctors. Insurance companies need only concern themselves with satisfying government regulators and corporate purchasers. Meanwhile doctors have to please only the insurance companies which dont particularly care how patients are treated as long as its cheap.
This is a third-party-payer problem or as the proverb goes He who pays the piper calls the tune." All third-party-payer systems are disasters. The customer is trapped forced to pay for something he doesnt want with no one to complain to and no possibility of taking his business elsewhere.
An example frequent travelers will recognize are the online discount hotel brokers. These can be great unless you arrive at a hotel and theres no WiFi or theres massive construction going on or your room isnt available until four hours after check-in time. But youve already paid the full price to the booking company.
If you had paid for the room yourself you could walk away and find another hotel. (Even if you used a credit card you can reverse the charges because again credit card companies would go out of business if they didnt refuse payment for scams.) But if you booked through a third party the hotel tells you Sorry take it up with Expedia."
Ironically Romney is proposing that all Americans have the same ability he has to hire and fire insurance companies and doctors. The rich already can do this. Why cant the rest of us? We hire and fire our own appliance stores pet groomers restaurants hairdressers and computer companies. Why not health providers?
And why are the media so desperate to avoid that conversation?
We need a free market in health insurance which Congress could accomplish with a one-page bill stating There shall be interstate commerce in health insurance." Once we were allowed to purchase health insurance across states lines prohibited by law today everyone would be buying insurance from companies based in states such as Utah which have the fewest mandates about what health insurers must cover.
Insurance companies would be responsive to us the people buying their services and not the government or corporations. Most people would choose to buy insurance only for what insurance is intended for catastrophes while paying for regular checkups themselves the same way we pay for our own cell phones computers baby sitters manicures and everything else thats been getting better and cheaper unlike all government-regulated services.
Doctors would then have to be responsive to us not to our insurance companies. Nothing improves the quality of a service like being able to fire the people providing it. The media dont want you to think about that so they edit Romneys remark and call it a gaffe."
For better service right now for example the American people need to fire Barack Obama and hire Mitt Romney.
