Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to nationalize and control the healthcare of every person in the nation, yet she cannot fathom choosing her own taxpayer-subsidized insurance plan from the 66 generous gold plans offered by the United States Congress.
Members of Congress also have to buy their plans off the exchange. They are Gold plans that are partially subsidized.
That means I get to “choose” btwn 66 complex financial products.
This is absurd. No person should go without healthcare, &no one should go through this, either. pic.twitter.com/bIeD71CD5g
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 16, 2019
And as someone who has now experienced many parts of the insurance spectrum (being uninsured, underinsured, and adequately insured) I don’t see how anyone can think our current healthcare system only needs a 10% improvement or a just few tweaks.
We need #MedicareForAll.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 16, 2019
I suppose it makes sense that a campaign supporter of Bernie Sanders, who complains that we have too many deodorant and sneaker options, would lament such consumer choice as a bad thing. But this betrays her economic illiteracy.
Cutting healthcare costs for providers and consumers alike requires more variety, not less. Someone young and healthy such as Ocasio-Cortez can bank on a high deductible in exchange for low premiums, whereas older or chronically sicker consumers will want lower deductibles and higher premiums. Ocasio-Cortez, who wears glasses, might want vision insurance included in her plan, but consumers with perfect eyesight probably wouldn’t opt to pay for that.
Customized plans allow insurers to cover the costs of more illness-prone patients in their risk pools without unnecessarily upcharging healthier people, which could deter healthy individuals from paying into the pool at all. Medicare For All wouldn’t accomplish that.
The one-size-fits-all plan backed by the Bernie Bros might be a fine option if you’re not capable of understanding or choosing insurance. But it would make six-figure earners such as Ocasio-Cortez pay more in premiums (levied as taxes), even though many of them would need less medical attention than older people potentially not paying into the system at all. This is also the real reason a hybrid plan like Pete Buttigieg’s “Medicare for All Who Want It” cannot work. All private health insurance must be abolished if Medicare is to cover everything for everyone because the system can only work by massively overcharging younger and healthier people.
Really, it’s a bit rich that someone who complains that designer health insurance plans are “complex financial products,” instead of a gift from taxpayers, wants to abolish your insurance plan and design it instead.
Unfortunately for Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, the real world requires trade-offs, and for all of the flaws of the FDR-instigated, employer-sponsored health insurance schemes, customized plans aren’t the worst way to go. Choice enables us to minimize prices while maximizing care, and only a statist would excoriate freedom as a system of oppression.
