Last week, I highlighted what has already become the standard meme for ”progressive” policy wonks who wish to bash John McCain’s proposal to decouple health insurance from employment. The basic talking point, as expressed by Jonathan Cohn, goes as follows:
Insurance companies generally won’t offer coverage directly to people with ‘pre-existing conditions,’ since they represent such bad financial risks.
The basic idea here is that the employment-based insurance system offers protections to higher risk patients that would evaporate in an individual insurance market. However, as is often the case, the actual evidence refutes the Lefty meme.
In reality, as this Health Affairs article points out, a free individual market would offer more protection for high-risk patients than does the employment-based system so beloved of our “progressive” friends. Here’s the money quote:
A young male high risk who initially had small-group coverage faces a 44 percent chance of becoming uninsured in the next period–a risk nearly twice as great as it would be if he initially had individual insurance.
So, once again, Cohn and his fellow travelers have it wrong. Why? Because their positions are based on ideology rather than objective data. That’s OK for the cocktail circuit or some nutroot convention, but it’s no way to make actual policy.
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