Tuesday, March 9, 2010

No Clear Message? Whargarbl!!!


All of exclamation marks and question marks in the world won't make this message any clearer.
          

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...
March 9, 2010 at 5:10 PM  

What's not clear about it? They're saying that if the public option isn't in the health care reform bill, then individuals shouldn't be mandated to buy health insurance, as the bill in its current form says we will. No points for penmanship, but the point is pretty clear.

Barbara said...
March 12, 2010 at 9:07 AM  

it doesn't seem logical to me. Without an individual mandate, there is no hope of a public option ever working. the person creating this sign just wants entitlements and doesn't understand at all how health insurance works.

Anonymous said...
March 13, 2010 at 12:28 PM  

Barbara,
I think the sign is arguing that without a public option, an individual mandate is just forcing people to buy insurance from private companies.

Some have argued that this would just be a big "gimme" for the insurance industry, since they would gain millions of customers; some of those customers are unwanted because of chronic health problems, but many of them are (mostly young) people who've decided they'd rather wager on their good health than pay insurance premiums -- insurers would absolutely love to force them all to buy insurance.

Whether a bill with an individual mandate but no public option benefits or hurts insurers really depends on what other regulatory stuff is in the bill, but I do think it's self-evidently a weaker reform, one more vulnerable to subversion in the near-future: all you need to do is dig out some loopholes in the regulatory structure while keeping the rules forcing everyone to buy (private) health insurance. If a public plan were to be established, opponents of universal healthcare would have to overcome far greater political inertia to dismantle the system.

-- Alex

Craig said...
March 17, 2010 at 9:44 AM  

Alex,

there is no way for the current business model of insurance to work AND cover everyone, unless everyone is buying insurance. The healthy offset the costs of the sick. If we all waited to buy insurance until we needed it, it would bankrupt the industry and no one would get any health insurance.

Plus, that mindset makes about as much sense as waiting until your house is on fire to by homeownerjavascript:void(0)s insurance.

I'm with Barbara on this one.

Heather Houlahan said...
March 17, 2010 at 12:05 PM  

You're off-base on this one. The protester is saying, quite clearly, that he or she opposes an individual mandate if the bill does not include a public option.

Everything is spelled correctly, and is grammatical, if not stylish, English.

Two extra exclamation points does not a moron make.