Junk Policies

I don’t happen to think it is an important part of “health care reform” but it’s a matter of honesty; not so much in the initial premise as in the nature of the response to the kerfuffle.

“If you like the insurance policy you have, you will be able to keep it,” Obama promised, specifically and repeatedly, a statement which rather slaps him in the face when millions of Americans receive letters canceling their policies because those policies do not meet standards set by “health care reform” legislation.

His response is to attack the policies, calling them “junk policies,” which is at best tone deaf. He often insults his supporters in that fashion, in this case telling them that they were pretty stupid to be liking those trashy, worthless “junk policies.” They only thought that they liked them, and if they read them or had half a brain, they would not have liked them at all because they are “junk.” They are so much better off now that he has denied them the ability to keep the garbage they liked having and can now “buy better policies at an affordable price.” He does not define “affordable.”

Democrats in general have taken up the refrain. One of them was on Piers Morgan last night screaming over the top of anyone else’s attempt to say anything that “These are junk policies that nobody wants to buy.” A variant on that was “They stopped selling them because they are garbage policies that nobody would buy,” which doesn’t quite square with the fact that it has been the insurance companies doing the canceling, not the policy holders.

One “progressive” described such a policy as being garbage because it didn’t pay for routine office visits. “If she goes to the doctor once a week, she gets to pay $648/yr in premiums and another $6525/year to the doctor,” as if going to the doctor once per week is a realistic expectation. In fact, the policy holder was quite happy with the “catastrophic coverage,” because she is a healthy young person and is covered in the event of a disaster. She doesn’t want to buy car insurance that pays for oil changes, either.

I would not necessarily agree with that point of view, but it’s not my call. Who am I to tell her what she should want? “If you like the policy you have,” Obama said. If he had gone on and added, “If you are stupid enough to like a junk policy then we are going to save you from your stupidity and require you to buy a better policy at a higher price,” then I suspect that “health care reform” would have been significantly less popular.