Saturday, April 8, 2017

$15 billion slush fund. From the Wall St. Journal

Friday's Journal had a piece about an attempt to sweeten the Obamacare replacement bill.  A $15 billion fund will be established to pay insurers for the extra costs of insuring "previous condition" patients.  This would somehow keep premiums down for the regular customers.  Groovy.  I love insurance companies, and of course we need to give them an extra $15 billion. 
  The Journal neglected to tell us taxpayers just how the money would be doled out.  Would it be on a per patient with previous conditions basis?  Or just sliced up between insurers?  Is $15 billion enough to cover all the patients with previous conditions?  Or will it grow much bigger in a few months.  What might premiums look like  after this $15 billion fund is created? 
   To run a real democracy, us voters need to know about the issues.  The Journal piece skipped a lot of stuff we need to know.  The Journal used to be better than this. 

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