When advertising the GOP’s refurbished Obamacare plan, Rep. Jason Chaffetz suggested that Americans should choose between buying a new iPhone and “investing in their own healthcare.” And while that sounds like nice budgeting advice, the Utah Republican is wrong.
Perhaps nothing has affected the lives of everyday Americans in my lifetime as much as the evolution of smartphone technology and the rise of government run healthcare. But America doesn’t need to choose. The nation just needs to turn healthcare over to Apple and its competitors in the private sector. They reinvented the phone, maybe they can revolutionize healthcare.
Our very literal press, led by Philip Bump at the Washington Post, Kurt Eichenwald at Vanity Fair, and followed by an army of Twitter trolls, immediately pounced this morning, accusing Chaffetz of being indifferent to the plight of America’s poor. As Bump noted, with considerable superiority and little context, the average cost of an individual insurance policy far outpaces the cost of a fully-loaded iPhone 7. But there’s a better comparison to make between an iPhone and insurance than the one Chaffetz made.
Even Siri knows that a lot has happened in the last eight years. While insurance has become less accessible and more expensive, the opposite occurred with the iPhone. Everyone has a smartphone thanks to Steve Jobs. Thanks to Obama though, everyone has to sign up for health insurance regardless of whether they want it or can even afford it.
Since Apple rolled out the first telephone in 2007, the technology has become cheaper, better, and more ubiquitous. The original iPhone only had 8-GB of memory, couldn’t even store videos, and retailed at upwards of $599. It was instantly a coveted luxury, an overnight status symbol of the wealthy. In comparison, today’s iPhone is pocket supercomputer.
What’s more, it’s cheaper. A brand new 32-GB iPhone 7 retails at $650 at the Apple store. But no one pays that much. Most consumers sign a wireless plan and lease the technology for much less. Anyone can march into a Verizon anywhere and get their hands on an iPhone for about $36 a month.
Unfortunately buying an insurance policy isn’t as easy as picking the right wireless package. It’s actually awful. After Obamacare, consumers have fewer options, less peace of mind when picking a plan, and a helluva lot bigger premium. Back in 2009 before the Affordable Care Act passed, the average individual plan cost $161 a month with an annual deductible of $2,326. Today those numbers have shot up on average to $393 and $4,328 respectively.
None of this should be mistaken as an endorsement of the current American Healthcare Act. The cellular equivalent of that bill is a buggy Blackberry with a cracked screen that nobody really wants. Instead the point is that the free market has made technology better while the state has made healthcare worse.
Maybe it’s time to turn healthcare over to Apple. Unfortunately, I doubt Bump and company will ever think different.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
