The Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon, one of the nation’s leading health care scholars, has a solid piece on National Review Online about why the states shouldn’t set up exchanges:
Obamacare had a bad couple of days before the Supreme Court — so bad that President Obama made some ill-considered comments about the Court from which he still hasn’t totally backpedaled. Though the oral arguments over the individual mandate and severability were encouraging, we cannot count on the Supremes to kill Obamacare. Opponents must keep fighting it on all fronts.
The most important front right now is to ensure that states do not create the health-insurance exchanges Obamacare needs in order to operate. Refusing to create exchanges is the most powerful thing states can do to take Obamacare down. Think of it as an insurance policy in case the Supreme Court whiffs.
Under the Health Care Act, insurance coeanpims must cover children with pre-existing conditions. I read today that some of these insurance coeanpims have committed a despicable act but putting their profits way ahead of childrens care. They had refused to cover seriously ill children before but they have gone beyond the pale by by cutting off childrens policies completely.I dont think Obama and those who wrote the bill expected that to happen. They negotiated with the insurance executives several times in good faith and caved in to Republicans not to have a public option with the guarantees the insurance coeanpims would cover kids with medical conditions.I understand that United, Cigna, Aetna are refusing to write policies. Dont blame Pres. Obama. He tried to force insurance coeanpims to cover sick children.It is just terrible. If I had insurance with those coeanpims I would cancel it.ALMACIGA: If you already have children covered by Blue Cross they probably wont drop them but you cannot get a new policy if the kids have pre-existing conditions. Blue Cross is Anthem.Parents wont let their seriously ill kids go without insurance because they can get sick at any time and there are waiting periods for care so no parent would take that kind of risk.