James Capretta and Lanhee Chen of American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution, respectively, have a piece in a recent Wall Street Journal edition that talks about how to “nudge” uninsured Americans into getting health coverage plans. It’s impressive in its…foolishness…(I’m being polite).
Congress can help these Americans and many others get insurance by enrolling them in no-premium, no-obligation plans from which they could withdraw if they wanted to.
No. Not only no, Hell no. No squared. We’ve enough Big Government intruding into our private lives, arrogantly presuming to make our private decisions for us, without adding this to the steaming pile.
But how to make sure people stay covered?
None of your business, and none of Big Government’s. This is an individual’s choice whether to stay. Or even to get a plan in the first place. Full stop.
But their [Republicans’] plan also must make sure most Americans have health insurance.
No it mustn’t. It need only ensure Americans (all, not just your “most”) have access to insurance. That access will come most broadly from a free market in which actual insurance policies are sold (not the currently available welfare coverage plans that Big Government is trying to force on us in ever diminishing variety and ever increasing cost). The decision to buy—the decision to participate at all—can only be the individual’s in a free nation.
And: keep your hands out of my pockets looking for money with which to pay for your “no-premium, no-obligation” schemes. Of course you—and every American with two neurons to bump against each other to form a ganglion—know that your schemes won’t be free or without obligation: someone is going to pay for that stuff.
Talk about false premises. Jeez.
Finally: when did these two AEI and Hoover Institution denizens join the Progressive-Democratic Party?