Thursday, September 10, 2009

Any color you want, as long as it's black

Another whopper from Obama's address to Congress:
My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition.
Really? Remember the passage I quoted in my previous post?
Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies – because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.
This isn't about choice. It's about the absence of choice. What he's advocating limits the types of policies a company can offer so severely that we end up with a one-size-fits all program, which he then forces everyone to buy:
That’s why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance – just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.
This is just utter nonsense. The man can't even be consistent within a single speech.

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