Assigning Blame
We now have a White House where the buck never stops. Our post on Edie Sunby described a woman who may lose her life because of the perverse incentives in managed competition. I predict there will be others. The reason? An insurance policy that allows you to go anywhere in the country, consulting with the best doctors at the best institutions is about to become a relic of the past ― at least in the ObamaCare exchanges.
The White House response to this unfortunate incident? Blame insurance company greed. As The Wall Street Journal observed:
Dan Pfeiffer, President Obama’s chief political spinner, sent out a now infamous tweet on Monday linking to a left-wing website that blamed Mrs. Sundby’s policy loss on UnitedHealthcare. The White House default is always to blame the insurers. But UnitedHealthcare only fled the state because ObamaCare’s subsidized exchanges are meant to steal their customers. As more people are pulled into government coverage, policies like Mrs. Sundby’s are harder to sustain economically, so insurers bail.
Mr. Pfeiffer and other liberals suggest that UnitedHealthcare is profiteering, but that’s an odd way to describe a company that has spent $1.2 million on Mrs. Sundby’s cancer care. Liberals also claim the company could have moved Mrs. Sundby’s policy to the Covered California exchange, but the company isn’t participating precisely because the exchange rules are too restrictive. And none of the other insurers that are participating in the state exchange offer a PPO with Mrs. Sundby’s current coverage. Thus she may lose her preferred doctor as well as her insurance.
“We now have a White House where the buck never stops.”
It’s just running wild!
Somebody stop it! Run for your lives!
“I predict there will be others.”
Only the suffering of innocents can slake Obama’s thirst.
Eh, I think that he believes he is doing the right thing.
Of course he does. Self-preservation is one of the highest goods.
“An insurance policy that allows you to go anywhere in the country, consulting with the best doctors at the best institutions is about to become a relic of the past”
And with it, efficiency, logic and reason are going the way of the dodo.
They died long ago.
To heaven with Nana?
Maybe the buck will stop on the White House when they run all of the insurance companies out of the industry and government is the only thing left.
Don’t get my hopes up.
Oh your utopia is coming, Stewie. My only request is that you put me in a nicer re-education camp.
You’ll get the same as everyone else. How else will you learn equality?
Nah, I’m sure they’ll find someone else to blame it on. Bush, Republican obstruction, the patient…
I can see it now. “Well, uh, Mrs. Sundby shouldn’t have gotten sick! It’s her own fault! I didn’t get her sick, did you get her sick, Joe? How about you Kathleen?”
I am coming in late on this, but a patient generally does not lose their doctor if they go to another network. They just have to pay in cash to visit that doctor.
If the doctor is doing expensive tests, that could be a problem. If the doctor does not accept cash, that could be a problem.
But if they want to see a doctor six times a year for an office visit, how awful is that?
Yeah, itsObamas fault people die from cancer.
When Chris Christie is president he will subsidize trams fats and everyone will have a heart attack long before cancer can kill them
This is a new low for what is generally a pretty good blog.