On Obama’s Health Care Speech

Barack Obama, the POTUS, spoke this evening to Congress on the Health Care Reform proposals being evaluated by the House and Senate and getting a lot of coverage in the press and blogosphere.  I wanted to comment on one section of his speech where I think he is either naive or nefarious.

Let me — let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have (4). What this plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you.

(1) Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition…

…They will (2) no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime.

We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of- pocket expenses (3), because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick.

And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge (2), routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies.

The emphasis and numbering are mine.

1. If insurance companies cannot deny coverage for a pre-existing condition, premiums will necessarily rise to cover said pre-existing conditions.  Admittedly, it seemed bizarre to me that insurance companies would deny coverage for something completely unrelated to the pre-existing condition, but the point is that forcing insurers to cover everyone and anyone, costs will rise.
2. Prohibiting the insurers from capping payouts or having additional fees for addition coverages will increase premiums, because costs will rise to cover additional services.
3. Limiting / prohibiting co-pays will force insurers to pay more, so to maintain their liquidity and profitability they will need to raise premiums.
4. While this claim may be true, with all the restrictions and requirements being foisted on the insurers, policy holders will find the increasing cost of their plans prohibitive.  As the private and employer plans become too expensive, people will be forced towards the taxpayer subsidized “public option” because it will “appear” cheaper.

Considering these few paragraphs, I am reminded of Wesley Mouch and Jim Taggart from Atlas Shrugged…