The President is Not Your Daddy

Posted by John LaPlante in Insurance Regulation on Dec 17th, 2009 | no responses

Evidently the Senate health reform bill isn’t entirely bad. The Washington Post reports that about 30 members of Congress don’t like the idea of letting states set up regional compacts that would let people buy health insurance across state lines.

The members of Congress object that such an idea would lead to a “race to the bottom,” with a reduction in consumer “protections” resulting. Never mind, though, that a number of rules would still be in place. First of all, the insurance plan would be regulated by the state in which it was sold. Then, your own state’s legislature would have to agree to enter into a compact, giving consumers another (dubious) level of protection. Finally, “insurers would have to comply with federal requirements promulgated under the bill. Many of those have yet to be determined and would be established through regulation after the bill is enacted.”

What’s at work here is, in part, an incredible amount of arrogance regarding the American people. In short, you’re too much of a child to know what’s good for you, so the politicians must protect you.

Now in the normal course of life, there are millions of people who really don’t know what’s best for them, and who, for their own good as well as the good of society, must be supervised on a regular, and sometimes even hourly basis. They’re called … children. Parents must say to the 3-year old, no, you can’t eat only sugar, and yes, you must go to bed. All this is right and proper.

By contrast, politicians should leave citizens alone to make their own decisions about all sorts of questions, including from whom they buy health insurance.

Of course, this means that citizens must realize that the president is not a daddy who can make everything all right.