Leah
Barkoukis | @LeahBarkoukis | Posted:
Dec 17, 2019 7:30 AM
Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez expressed her frustration over having dozens of insurance plans
to choose from while many Americans are left with only
one option thanks to government involvement in the healthcare
market.
"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' [between] 66 complex
financial products. This is absurd. No person should go without healthcare,
[and] no one should go through this, either," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter Sunday.
“While I am VERY thankful
to finally have health insurance, it is a moral outrage that it took me
*getting elected to Congress* for that to happen.
“The US needs to become an advanced society. That includes establishing healthcare as a right to all people,” she said.
“The US needs to become an advanced society. That includes establishing healthcare as a right to all people,” she said.
The progressive Democrat
then used her experiences with health insurance to justify needing even more
government intervention.
“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,”
she said. “We need #MedicareForAll.”
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.
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.
While
I am VERY thankful to finally have health insurance, it is a moral outrage that
it took me *getting elected to Congress* for that to happen.
The US needs to become an advanced society. That includes establishing healthcare as a right to all people.
The US needs to become an advanced society. That includes establishing healthcare as a right to all people.
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.
We need #MedicareForAll.
The Washington Examiner
pointed out how Ocasio-Cortez clearly lacks a basic understanding of how
insurance costs are able to be kept low.
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. [...]
Choice enables us to
minimize prices while maximizing care, and only a statist would excoriate
freedom as a system of oppression. (Washington Examiner)
After
Republican criticism on Monday, AOC doubled down and said "healthcare is
not H&M."
"A
lot of Republicans are quite upset about critiquing the frame of 'choice' within
our health insurance system, with many staying that those who struggle to pick
the best insurance option are simply 'too dumb' to know better. But the
complexity of our system is by design," she wrote on Twitter.
"They're
also upset that I stated 66 'choices' is too many," she continued. "It is! Healthcare is not
H&M. Insurance is a complex financial product for the doctor. Costs are
skyrocketing largely due to the financialization of our health. Streamlining
our system [and] covering more isn’t a bad thing."
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