There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, even if your constituents demand it.
It’s a simple lesson, but one that Governor Northam and his fellow Democrats don’t seem to have grasped.
Governor Northam took to the Richmond Times Dispatch over the weekend to attack Republican efforts to allow voters to purchase the health insurance they want, not the health insurance that the Governor thinks they need.
What the Governor fails to recognize is that Virginians want a choice. Families can make their own decisions about what insurance they want to purchase. Families know their own needs far better than you do, Governor.
For example, a 22-year-old single man and his husband might choose to purchase a short term plan because they will have no need of the many bundled services that are included in every Obamacare plan — including maternity services.
If Governor Northam and his Democrat allies were honest, they’d simply come out and admit that Obamacare plans are a tax by other means.
Providing care for all Virginians, regardless of pre-existing conditions, without raising rates for those who use more care than others, requires someone to pick up the tab. Those people are the young, healthy Virginians who seldom use the health coverage they purchase.
Democrats panic when young, healthy Virginians are given a chance to buy the coverage that best fits their lives because it removes them from the risk pool.
With fewer people in the risk pool, the illusion that insurance can be provided without regard to the age, health, or gender of the person insured begins to fall apart.
That’s one reason Governor Northam used his RTD op-ed to roll out his support for a state level “reinsurance” program for Virginia insurance companies.
Under Northam’s reinsurance scheme, taxpayers would be on the hook for major losses by Obamacare providers — instead of insurance companies.
Rather than be honest about why they oppose short term plans, Governor Northam and Democrats continue to act as if they have the best interest of consumers at heart.
They attack Republican efforts to let families choose their coverage as “discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions,” a claim so far removed from reality even PolitiFact rated it false.
Democrats opine that consumers might be left under-insured if they’re allowed to purchase they plans they want. Possibly, but in a society of free men and women, we are all responsible for our own choices. Governor Northam’s concerns echo the worst sentiments of Nanny-state politics — government knows best, so take your medicine.
The reality is simple. Democrats oppose short term plans because they need people who don’t need Obamacare plans to overpay for insurance to subsidize those who do.
But then again, our moonwalking Governor has already demonstrated he has problems with honesty.