Reply #8: "Insurance - lite" is not a solution

[OzarkDem]

- "Those who can afford coverage but decline it. Usually, these people decline coverage because they are in good health and consider coverage too costly. But this means when they get sick, the public safety net picks up the tab for them. This cycle should be stopped. Insurers claim they can provide insurance plans at less than half the rate of today’s standard $500 a month for an individual. The federal government should work with insurance companies to design high-deductible, low-premium plans to serve these people. States like Massachusetts and New York are already doing this. We need to take this successful program to the national level so the people of Tennessee can benefit as well."

Those are GOP talking points, sad to say. Most individual insurance plans (like those touted in Mass.) are nearly worthless. Most of those programs are very, very vulnerable to being undercut when someone actually becomes sick. Most of these so -called health care policies (which patients pay dearly for) don't cover prescription drugs, routine health screenings, or important items like chemotherapy for cancer patients. Those may seem trivial to you and Harold Ford, but believe me, they are not trivial to most Americans.

Any politician who is deluded enough to think that a private insurance company will provide quality, affordable, comprehensive health care coverage is fooling themselves. They can't and they won't.

Now if Harold is willing to include a guarantee in his plan that provides for affordable private insurance with full ERISA protection, then we can talk.