From our American correspondent Esteban:
A few weeks ago I came across a couple of stories about Democrats and health insurance that I finally got around to writing about:
First, AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aka America’s Oblivious Child, Occasional Cortex, or Sandy) tweeted that she had recently received her annual health insurance renewal forms and it was too complex for her. Obviously, this is further evidence that America’s healthcare system needs to be revamped under her benevolent leadership.
I had a somewhat different reaction. It seems to me that there are three possible conclusions here:
A) She’s too dim to figure out her health insurance options
B) The Federal government is so bad at designing and communicating things that even a brilliant rock star Congresswoman can’t understand them, or
C) All of the above
I submit that whether you believe the correct answer is A, B or C, this is not a good starting point to argue that Sandy and the Federal government should take over our healthcare (not to mention the entire economy, etc.).
On to the second Democrat – I believe it was Thomas Friedman, but it could have been another NY Times pundit. He noted that at some point in the past he had a choice of whether to get health insurance through the NY Times or CUNY. He chose the NY Times because the options from CUNY were just too damn confusing. So, he chose to get his health insurance from a private sector employer rather than a governmental employer because, he tells us, the governmental employer made it too damn complicated, even for a man of his brilliance. Now, let’s get back to putting the government in charge of all health insurance, and pretty much everything else.
Patient: Doctor, I’m feeling worse.
Democrat: More leeches, stat!
The language we use matters - it provides clarity to our own thoughts and enables…
It is now generally acknowledged that the structure of the NHS needs to be overhauled…
In the film Apollo 13, a loss of oxygen causes the crew to start inadvertently…
There's an idea out there which seems intuitive but then so many ideas do seem…
When we think about the darkly opaque goals of modern central bankers as they relate…
As the papers recently filled with the distressing images of desperate souls looking to escape…
View Comments
Sheeple like to imagine the government is good at this stuff precisely so they can abrogate their own responsibilities. So the message from Sandy is likely to resonate with Joe Sixpack.
Joe Sixpack is unlikely to see that the answer to the complications and failures of socialism cannot be more/total socialism. Trump is not incisive enough to lay it out for the voter in these terms, though he is reading, retweeting, and employing people who can. Trump has his own appeal to the voters who are either poorly educated or uninterested in learning all the details, perhaps because the cows need to be fed or it's time to go down into the mine.
Give this correspondent his own by-line (real or pseudonym). You have many "American correspondents."
Precisely, AOC complained of the NUMBER OF CHOICES, notably as Bernie Sanders complained of the 29 types/brands of deodorant for sale in the supermarket. The more these guys say that Venezuela was not a failure of socialism but just the wrong people doing it, the clearer it gets that they are the wrong people too.
". . . received her annual health insurance renewal forms and it was too complex for her"
?
I've never seen anyone receive 'annual health insurance renewal forms'. Insurance is an ongoing subscription. Like all other insurance. They just notify you the renewal is coming up and you'll be charged as usual.
The only time paperwork is involved is when you choose to change the terms of your coverage.
Employer provided health insurance generally involves an annual enrollment period where employees can change plans - move to a higher deductible plan with lower premiums, for example. "Renewal forms" is probably a poor description, but I think most people who've had employer-based coverage know what was meant.
Yes. Also, AOC is now an employee of the US Government, whose procedures are probably more cryptic than those of a business corporation. Obama-care "marketplace" insurance does have such an annual window (though Members of Congress are famously given separate coverage).
On a similar note, one Mr Gordon Brown admitted he could not complete the HMRC Self-Assessment form sent to Joe Public; Darling when chancellor said same
I never had a problem with mine (at least the online one). Each entry box had a number and it linked to a (half-way) decent explanation.
That said, I'm not a politician so have more than 2 brain cells to call upon.