The following passage from National Review goes back to October 30, ancient by blogosphere standards, but it captures the essence of Obamacare far too well to pass over without comment. Writing about the House “reform” bill, the editors point out two things it has in common with all Democrat health care proposals:
Like every other Democratic bill before Congress, this ‘comprehensive reform’ has two major features: First, it transforms insurance into a product that few rational people would buy. Second, it forces them to buy it.
As to transforming insurance, the House and Senate bills both dictate the type of coverage carriers must provide. This repeats a mistake made by many states. As I have pointed out in AmSpec, coverage mandates exacerbate health care inflation while forcing consumers to buy insurance for contingencies they will never encounter:
In Connecticut, for example, it isn’t possible to buy an individual health insurance policy that doesn’t include coverage for hair pieces. In Alaska, you can’t buy a policy that doesn’t cover naturopaths. The citizens of California must pay for acupuncture coverage or go without insurance.
Having thus created absurdly expensive health plans providing coverage consumers don’t want, both Democrat bills mandate the purchase of these white elephants. And anyone with the temerity not to buy a government-mandated health plan will be fined, and perhaps even go to jail. This is the essence of what the Democrats insist on calling “reform.”
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