I don’t know that there has ever been an editorial with whose opening passages I agreed with less than this one from the Washington Post:
Health care keeps growing more expensive because the American system is less and less a free market. Fewer people pay directly for medical care, and government heavily subsidizes demand without increasing supply, a sure route to higher prices. The Biden administration worsened these dynamics by making it too easy to sign up for zero-premium insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act — which invited rampant fraud — and by extending unnecessary Medicare Part D subsidies.
but with whose conclusions I agreed with so strongly:
The Trump administration took reasonable and modest steps to address both problems. Democratic leaders characterized them as draconian cuts. Now the numbers are in, and the sky didn’t fall.
These are the “numbers” that I found startling:
Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tell us that just 51 of the 760,000 removed enrollees have requested reinstatement. Those 51 accounts have yet to be verified “due to suspicious agent and broker activity, possible impersonations and other red flags warranting further scrutiny,” according to a CMS official.
51 is roughly .001% of the total removed. Less than one ten-thousandth. Not bad for government work. And even that number may be an overstatement.
What’s wrong with doing something that saves more than $2 billion and hurts no one? Youth wants to know.
What I disagree with most is the opening sentence. We haven’t had a “free market” in healthcare for more than a century and there is no longer a path to one that most Americans would accept. I’ve already proposed my solution and it isn’t a free market. You cahn’t get the-ah from he-ah.
