Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Good Point, Jonathan Chait!   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

He writes in The New Republic:

Joe Lieberman recently piped up that he prefers to take minor steps on health care—such as banning insurance company discrimination against those with preexisting conditions—and forego covering the uninsured.

But, if you forbid insurance companies from discriminating against the sick without bringing healthy people into the risk pool, then healthy people would have no reason to buy insurance. They could just wait until they get sick and take out a policy, and the insurance companies would have to sell them one. Rates would skyrocket, and the whole system would become unaffordable. Some say we should build a bridge across a river. Others say we shouldn’t. Joe Lieberman wants to build a bridge halfway across.

09/09 07:21 PMShare