“Polling on every possible option confounds all logic,” or so writes Tiana Lowe about ObamaCare and its repeal, at National Review.
“Americans overwhelmingly dislike the individual mandate and prioritize lowering the cost of health care over all other health problems in the country,” Ms. Lowe elaborates, “but a majority of Americans do not want to roll back Obamacare’s guaranteed coverage of pre-existing conditions. Just a quarter of Americans are happy with Obamacare as-is, but a mere 12 percent favor the now-dead Senate health-care bill.”
Perceptively, she notes that the situation is as bad or worse for politicians, who want to “have their cake and eat it too.” The problem with politicians is pretty obvious: they lie because they are afraid of confronting the truth.
But it seems to me, on the evidence Lowe herself provides, Americans mostly have it right.
We want to lower costs of health care. Well, that should be the first priority. It should’ve been government’s highest priority, since government caused our predicament.
A huge supermajority is unhappy with ObamaCare, which makes sense. The Affordable Care Act is not affordable. But the Senate health-care bill was worse than ObamaCare, so folks were right to oppose it.
The only real issue? Many Americans don’t seem to understand that the “pre-existing coverage” mandate necessarily raises costs. Forcing insurance companies to pay for non-eventualities* requires them to pass those extras onto customers in general. Here is where leadership would be of help.
And where it has failed, our President most of all.
Lowe criticizes Trump for not pushing the Senate’s bill more effectively. I’m thankful for that.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Insurers wager against unpredictable future illness or accident, not the sucker’s bet of paying for an existing predicament.
