Dems ask Trump admin to keep young people's health costs high

From thehill.com (edited to show the perspective of a less powerful demographic group) 

Senate Democrats are urging the Trump administration not to move forward with changes to ObamaCare that could lead to increased healthcare costs for older Americans decreased healthcare costs for younger Americans.

In a letter to Tom Price, the newly confirmed secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Kirsten Gillibrand warn against adjusting the age rating requirement in ObamaCare.

The Huffington Post reported last week that a forthcoming HHS regulation could change the ratio set under ObamaCare on how much more insurers can charge older people than younger people.

“We write to express our serious concerns that the Trump administration is reportedly considering a change to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that would have the direct impact of increasing health insurance costs for older adults decreasing health insurance costs for younger adults and ask that this policy be removed from consideration,” the senators wrote.

“We oppose rolling back consumer protections established in the ACA that protect older Americans from discrimination codify discrimination of younger Americans. Loosening the age rating requirements in the ACA without also expanding advance premium tax credits is a misguided policy that will make health insurance less affordable for millions of Americans more affordable for millions of Americans.”

Right now, the ratio is 3:1, meaning insurers can charge older people, who tend to have higher health costs, three times as much in premiums as younger people. Insurers have long been pushing to loosen up that requirement and allow for charging older people more while charging younger people less. 

The Huffington Post reported that the Trump administration is considering a regulation to change the ratio to 3.49:1, under the theory that 3.49 still “rounds down” to three and therefore follows the law. 

Republican-sponsored bills in the House would change the ratio to 5:1. 

“We are concerned that the reported proposal to relax the age band will amount to an insurance company give-away at the expense of older adults to the benefit of younger adults,” the senators said. 

AARP, the powerful seniors lobby, has threatened to sue the Trump administration if it follows through on the regulation.

Here We Go

In the last 8 years, during Obama's presidency, do you remember one time when he proposed something, and the immediate reaction from the media was, "Is President Obama's proposal constitutional?" That should be the very first question anyone asks when any branch of the government proposes something. It should go:

1. Is proposal legal?
2. Is proposal effective?
3. Is proposal possible?
4. What are the costs/drawbacks of the proposal?
5. Do the benefits outweigh the costs?

In the last 8 years (the last 16 years for that matter), I can't remember a single time when the left has asked question #1 at the onset of a policy discussion. In my memory, they only discuss constitutionality when the right tries to assert the constitution to prevent policies.

I welcome the left's newfound dedication to constitutionality just as I do its newfound interest in federalism (and here). If these turn out to be lasting, and consistently applied, Trump's election will be worth it.

Free Stuff

In the 2012 election, Mitt Romney received a fair amount of coverage with his comments about the 47%. Basically, he said that 47% of the electorate would vote for Obama no matter what because they are dependent on government and need Democrats to provide for them.

Other Republicans have made similar comments, and many have characterized the Democrat debates as a contest to give away free stuff. (View from the Left)

Now, there's proof. Drawn to this because I'm curious about what drives people's politics, I was surprised to see that Romney's comments were justified. Maybe not 47%, but a solid segment of Democrats vote Democrat for the free stuff.

Excerpt from study (with my comments in bold)

I was caught off guard by how specific and personal Democratic voters’ issues tended to be. One woman told me she had lost a job because she had to take care of a sick relative and wanted paid family leave. Another woman told me her insurance stopped covering a certain medication that had grown too expensive and she liked how Clinton and Sanders talked about lowering drug prices. One man told me his wages were stagnant at his hotel job and he was looking for policies to increase them.

Though the first two would qualify as free stuff, "policies that increase [wages]" doesn't necessarily qualify unless the policy is a minimum wage or legislation raising the wage.

Another way to spin this, as opposed to Vox saying "Democrats want specific things and Republicans want philosophical," is to say that Democrats want policies that help them personally, Democrats are selfish with public policy, while Republicans want what's good for the country. I'm sure the Left is apoplectic reading that, and I'm not saying it's always true. I would argue, however, that the non-elitist portions of the Democrat party are motivated more by personal wishes than what's good for everyone.

(If you read the link above to the Daily Kos, they cite how rich Republicans support lower taxes and weird tax breaks, etc. that benefit them, which is probably true for some Republicans, but why do so many Republicans support lower marginal rates at every level when most of them are not paying the highest levels?)

Trump Effects Economic Knowledge in the Media

From Yahoo! Finance's website.

Of all the times I've read or heard stories about tariffs, the only thing I've ever heard was how they would help American workers: Our steel manufacturers need to be protected from Chinese dumping. Tires too.

I can never recall reading a mainstream news article that mentioned that tariffs harm consumers, though it is mentioned frequently on Economics blogs I read.

Now, once Donald Trump proposes tariffs, they're terrible for consumers!

Of course, I already believed that, but I guess I can thank Donald Trump for changing the media's minds on tariffs. See, presidential candidates are extremely instructive. Despite the media constantly criticizing him and his followers, without him, they would never have seen the detrimental effects of tariffs.

Thank you, Donald Trump.

Does anyone believe we'll ever see a politician cite a report that carefully balances the costs and benefits of a new policy?

New York City lowers speed limit to save lives

Why don't reporters ask for that?

The Universe of Public Policy

I got a laugh from this. Apparently, Democrats lost the Senate last election despite agreeing with the voters, policy-wise, on "everything."

Here's a list of ALL public policies.

• Raise the Minimum Wage to $10.10
• Let illegal immigrants stay
• government should limit greenhouse gases
• upper income people pay too little in taxes
• corporations pay too little in taxes
• gay marriage should be legal
• congress should improve Obamacare but not repeal it

Knowing this should make the next Presidential election a lot more focused. No more foreign policy debates, no one cares about abortion, apparently, or guns.

A Can of Worms

One of the biggest realizations I had during and after the ACA debate was that the left clamored for this encyclopedic bill without caring (at least publicly) about the costs/downsides of the bill. I never heard one news report, heard one elected Democrat, or read one "progressive" blog article that tried to weigh the pros and cons. I'm sure there were a few bloggers who briefly mentioned a downside, but by and large, the left believed the ACA would reduce the uninsured rate to zero, some thought it would lower costs, and the most connected probably knew taxes would be going up for the richest.

The only party that really should have done more homework to present the problems with the ACA was the news media, and they did nothing of the sort. No reporting on how premiums would have to go up if those with pre-existing issued were guaranteed insurance, no talk about the effects of allowing students up to 26 to stay on insurance, no discussion of the minimum loss ratio regulation. All of these regulations--as far as the media were concerned--were freebies. Only positives.

Now, I'm worried about the same thing happening with Net Neutrality. It appears that the FCC is going to reclassify the internet as a public utility. This will allow them more power to regulate it. It is very important to understand, that as it is, THERE IS NO PROBLEM WITH THE INTERNET that this will fix. Instead, the Net Neutrality activists want this to forestall fast lanes, primarily.

My concern is that all of those who are advocating this policy change have not really considered all of the downsides of doing so. They are scared of prioritizing content, this will prevent that, so this must be done. What else will it enable the FCC to do? Shouldn't that be part of the debate? Wouldn't it be prudent also to wait until the cable companies do this prioritizing and see what the effect is before we outlaw it? There's a chance that prioritizing would be better for consumers.

I would fear a slow-lane internet that receives no maintenance and gradually deteriorates, but I believe we should address that problem when it occurs; reclassification could have large, unintended consequences (as many regulations do).