Criticism of Wicker’s position misguided
I see in his Wednesday column, Slim Smith (“Wicker determined to hew party line on health insurance,” Aug. 9) took Senator Wicker to task for voting the way most Mississippi voters would have wanted him to vote. Progressives have never really approved of representative democracy — all those “deplorables” and “clingers” who don’t see the wisdom in Washington and the virtue of big government programs.
I was hoping Slim wouldn’t jump on that bandwagon. He cites some projections from the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO forecasts the Senate proposal would cost 24 million Americans their insurance coverage.
How many of those are Medicaid enrollees, covered under the expanded eligibility under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)? Did the CBO note that under ACA funding formula, there are financial incentives for the states to cover the new enrollees rather than to cover the more needy previous enrollees? Did the CBO address the difficulty of any Medicaid enrollees to find caregivers able to accept new Medicaid patients?
Obamacare looks good on paper — more people have insurance; they just can’t get care. Slim goes on to point out that under the Senate plan, older Americans, just shy of Medicare age would pay higher premiums on the government-run exchanges — by a factor of 5.
Tell me; by actuarial tables, how much more does it cost to cover them? Maybe those cold-hearted Republicans are more knowledgeable than the elites will admit. Sadly, the progressives seem to exploit “the perfect is the enemy of the good” to prevent any improvement to the American health care system, once the envy of the world.
Bob Altman
Columbus
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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