Well, you’re right, I don’t know who is paying for the high risk pools, but in my state, the auto accident high risk pools are paid for by subsidizing them off the funds taken in by companies from paying customers. Each insurance co is legislated to provide coverage for a certain number of high risk or poor end users. You’re right also that it is a mess.
Yes, all I'm saying is that I recoil when I see Gingrich, of all people, throwing around politically sensitive terms such as "universal coverage" without any qualification and with no explanation of, or even nod to, the hard (and perhaps unacceptable) things that would have to happen for that to work.
Also to see Gingrich completely destroy the momentum for Ryan's plan back when he called it "right-wing social engineering," and then Gingrich, in this paragraph we've been discussing, -- without mentioning the actual funding mechanism -- seems to crib Ryan's plan for some way of paying for access to insurance that doesn't involve an individual or an employer mandate.
Or maybe Gingrich truly does mean that, in place of a mandate, we'll just tax the heck out of people to pay for universal coverage?
Obama could have taxed people to pay for Obamacare and gotten away with it, constitutionally. They chose the mandate simply as a way to try to avoid political accountablity: like claiming "I did not have sex with that woman . . . Monica Lewinsky," the Dems figured by using the mandate they could claim they didn't raise taxes to pay for Obamacare. And, technically, they didn't. Now they have to live or die with their process and nomenclature before the Supreme Court.
Mainly, it just ticks me off that the smartest guy in the room, on the critical issue of healthcare reform, is so careless as to toss off that his plan will achieve "universal coverage" (whatever Gingrich means by that) and then create the illusion that he can do so without anyone being "forced" (by way of mandate) to pay for it. I'm tired of unicorn sightings on both sides of the aisle, and this careless nuanced statement simply creates a very unnecessary controvery. One Gingrich will eventually have to explain or walk back. UGH.
BTW, came upon this article this morning; a little perspective from the Left:
A health insurance pool consisting entirely of people too sick to qualify for private insurance is like a fire-insurance pool consisting entirely of pyromaniacs. The best that can be said for such groupings is that the hospitalizations (or the fires) probably won't all happen in the same month. Health insurance high-risk-pool premiums are typically 125 percent to 200 percent above normal premiums, but even so, a government subsidy is typically required to cover costs.
[snip]
The poor performance of Obamacare's high-risk pools aren't an argument against Obamacare. They're an argument in favor of it. High-risk pools are a Band-Aid to stanch a hemorrhage. Democrats don't kid themselves that the Band-Aid will do much to stop the bleeding, which is why they don't embrace it as a long-term solution. Republicans ought to stop pretending it can be one.