And attached to it is this, from Clive Crook:
Fact-Checking: A Clarification: At the very least, the Republicans want to change Medicare radically…. [T]he plan is avowedly intended to end Medicare as we know it. That's the whole idea. It's absurd to dismiss what the Democrats said as a lie.…
Good so far…
But Crook goes on:
What about the idea that ACA is a "government takeover" of health care?… The reformed system… will still be mostly private… that was the point. But… [i]t surely isn't out of bounds to call a vast expansion of regulatory oversight a government take-over…
To say that it is Kenyan Muslim Socialism for the government to require that if you offer a health plan you have to offer it (risk-adjusted) to everybody buying on the exchange--well, my correspondent is right. This might win some sort of award for falwe equivalence.
The establishment of something like Britain's National Health Service is a government takeover of health care. The government, you see, takes over health care. That is why it is called a government takeover of health care.
Trying to get the regulatory structure of the private insurance market right via guaranteed issue and community rating--that isn't even a government takeover of heath insurance, let along health care.
I hereby award a coveted "Round, Flat, Policy Is Hard! Who Knows?--Opinions of Shape of Earth Differ" Prize to Clive Crook.
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
