February 27, 2017
It might have been helpful if the Post made this point in a piece reporting on Republican efforts to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The piece noted an article by National Economic Council aide Brian Blase, written before he joined the administration, that referred to the “need to reduce government bias towards comprehensive coverage.”
This bias is hardly an accidental. The vast majority of people are relatively healthy with low medical expenditure. These people would be well-served in most cases with very high deductible policies that cost little. However, this would make the policies purchased by the roughly 10 percent of the population (33 million people) with high expenses extremely expensive.
The major goal of the ACA was to make it possible for people who really need health insurance because of serious medical conditions to be able to afford it. Eliminating the requirement for comprehensive insurance for healthy people will make health insurance unaffordable for tens of millions of people.
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