It occurs to me that:
- The GOP categorically cannot resist getting behind bad policy with economically destructive end results, especially if and when they also increase suffering in the interim. It’s like their catnip.
- The Democrat wants to crawl out from under insurance reform with “popular” sub-measures, the community rating being among the very most popular.
- It is widely accepted that forcing a community rating in the absence of the individual mandate will extinguish health insurance as a profitable concern in this or any country
So here’s the plan. Figure out a way to pass the community rating. Fuck yeah, health insurance reform! Nobody can be denied coverage, 4EVA!!!!
Then: Healthy people stay out of insurance pools until they are genuinely sick, the insurance companies soon enough find they cannot continue to make money at that, prices and premiums spasmodically but systematically rise. Lather, rinse, repeat for 5-10 years. And then: BOOM. The system finally collapses utterly. President Palin is forced to do, uh, somethin’ or ‘nuther, doncha know? About all that health stuff and whatnot?
The GOP will have ushered in single payer.
And, no, I’ve not gone around the bend. Various conservatives are already making the connection:
the country will face a choice: allow the numbers of uninsured to continue shooting up, or enroll more and more people directly in taxpayer-funded government insurance plans.
I say, if nothing else, Democrats should be doing whatever possible to accelerate the arrival of that day. Think of it as the reverse Grover Norquist. And, rest assured, given the rampant fucktardia emanating from DC Democrats over the last few days, I think they are, uh, going as fast as they possibly can on this plan.
Lemkin 