Well, not quite, but it was an awesome comeback, imo. From Talking Points Memo:
Just before the Senate Finance Committee wrapped up for the long weekend, members debated one of Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) amendments, which would strike language defining which benefits employers are required to cover.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) argued that insurers must be required to cover basic maternity care. (In several states there are no such requirements.)
“I don’t need maternity care,” Kyl said. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”
Stabenow interrupted: “I think your mom probably did.”
The amendment was defeated, nine to 14.
Senator Kyl, by the way, is firmly anti-abortion, with a 100% perfect voting record according to the NRLC and a 0% voting record according to NARAL. So he thinks the government should force unwilling pregnant women to give birth, but objects to requiring insurance companies to pay for maternity care. Because that might make Kyl’s annual insurance premiums a few dollars higher.
The word “asshat” is so inadequate.
“Yo momma…probably did,” delivered deadpanned with the appropriate pause, would’ve been one for the ages.
That is excellent.
It is an excellent line.
But requiring insurance companies to cover something isn’t requiring them to pay for it. Insurance companies don’t pay for anything. Their customers pay for everything; the insurance company is a conduit. Requiring insurance plans to cover conditions does not create resources where resources did not previously exist; it simply constrains the choices of all the parties in the transaction by requiring everyone to purchase something they may (or may not) wish to purchase. This does not increase coverage; it decreases choice and makes the transaction less attractive to some people, reducing the chance they will choose it.
To put it another way, even in the states where insurance companies are not required to offer maternity coverage, you can buy maternity coverage. The only question is whether the risk pool for maternity insurance will include (unhappy) customers who do not believe they have exposure to maternity risk (60-year old women and their husbands) in addition to the people who actually want that coverage.
I really urge any readers of this not to blow off this argument; this is one of the things that liberal intervention into economic questions persistently and consistently gets wrong. Restricting people’s choices rarely leads to happier people, and making people with no risk assume some of the risk undermines their commitment to the shared society.
Robert,
I am very well aware of where the money to cover things come from. I am also aware that government programs are paid for by taxes.
The item in question was what items employers should be required to cover. If we continue to have a mostly employer-based system (which seems to be where we’re going), that means it would be quite likely that any job I have would not cover maternity coverage.
Given that a very large percentage of working women are at risk for pregnancy (whether they are trying to get pregnant or not), that would create a very inequitable situation for working women, in which their male colleagues are covered for almost any medical problem that might arise, while they have to buy additional private coverage for one of the major medical expenses they are likely to face, that amounts to a substantial pay cut for women under 45, a much more substantial pay cut than the pay cut experienced by all working people by rolling in maternity coverage.
Also note that women who have tried to buy maternity coverage in the private market often find they cannot get that coverage if they’ve had a previous cesarean. So about 25 percent of women who already have had a child would not be able to buy the coverage you’re directing them to. Of course, at the same time, in many states medical malpractice insurance providers won’t cover doctors who provide VBACs, so many women have no choice but to have a repeat cesarean, no matter their own preference and the preference of their physician. (That’s the market solution.)
There are medical costs I will never need covered, yet it’s funny that we’re not talking about excluding coverage of testicular and prostate cancer so the “unhappy” women don’t have to pay higher premiums for their own health insurance. (And indeed, just as my male co-workers saw some of their premiums go toward my son’s birth and the births of other children – including the children of men who worked for the company – the women say some of their premiums go toward the testicular cancer treatments of one of our male co-workers. He said his treatment cost around $250,000. That’s about 25 babies (I’m using $10K to average out the vaginal births and the C-sections). In the time I worked there, I think we had six or seven babies.)
Here’s the thing, Robert. I take your arguments seriously. I just disagree – about as strongly as I could disagree – that we ought to have individualized solutions. I think we ought to collectivize risk. I understand that costs money. I’m willing to pay that money. It’s a difference in values, not a difference in the amount of thought I’ve brought to the issue.
And that’s fine, Chingona. Argue as such and have your political allies in Washington do the same. You guys argue for collectivism and we’ll argue for individualism, and we’ll see how it comes out. :)
Kyl and Robert – as individualists – should simply not carry insurance. If these guys don’t want to pay for pregnancies or other risks to large portions of the population, then don’t expect everyone else to pay for your medical needs . . . pay for them yourselves out of pocket.
After all, pooled risk is for collectivists. We believe that in many situations the community succeeds best by helping one another and having the security of knowing that we’ll get help when we need it.
Also, research shows that an ever-increasing set of choices does NOT increase happiness. In fact, personally I can think of no greater hell than having to choose between piles upon piles of various fine-printed insurance policies . . . knowing that all the companies are out to make a buck off me, that they have all the information and power, and that only when I’m in dire straights – ill and incapacitated – will I know whether I made the right choice or not. Give me a one-size-size-fits-all, non-profit, high-efficiency system, thank you.
(although I guess the greatest hell must be to have no access to health care at all)
Kyl and Robert – as individualists – should simply not carry insurance. If these guys don’t want to pay for pregnancies or other risks to large portions of the population, then don’t expect everyone else to pay for your medical needs . . . pay for them yourselves out of pocket.
After all, pooled risk is for collectivists. We believe that in many situations the community succeeds best by helping one another and having the security of knowing that we’ll get help when we need it.
I accept your offer. You feel free to voluntarily socialize to whatever extent you wish. I may even join you, if your membership terms are to my satisfaction, as I have no objection to voluntary collectivization.
Do you not get that this isn’t about voluntary cooperation, but coerced participation?
Do you not get that this isn’t about voluntary cooperation, but coerced participation?
Except that the “coerced participation” is what employers will be required to offer, not what I’ll be required to buy as an individual. When I’m looking for a job, I don’t always have the luxury of only accepting a job from the company whose insurance policy is preferable to me. The notion that my individual choice is what’s in play here is simply false.
Except that the “coerced participation” is what employers will be required to offer, not what I’ll be required to buy as an individual.
It’s individual when they’re not allowed to sell what I want to buy.
And that’s what Sen. Stabenow is doing. She is forbidding companies from selling me a policy that doesn’t have something in it that I don’t want.
If you require the ice cream company to put a dog turd in every gallon, then you can’t say you aren’t infringing on my rights of choice just because you’re not making me eat out of one particular tub.
In the case of health care, it’s actually worse than you’re admitting, since there will be mandates both on the employer/insurer requiring them to make certain transactions that they and their workers didn’t necessarily want to make, AND requiring the worker to make transactions that s/he doesn’t necessarily want to make. It’s mandating the dog turd AND mandating that I finish the bowl.
Paying for the birth of a child = dog turd.
Did you read my link about how maternity coverage is not available on the private market for significant numbers of women? Do you have any solution to that that does not consist of “not my problem”?
And really, your analogy is pretty shitty.
It’s more like we both have to buy the variety pack, even though you don’t like coffee and I don’t like pistachio, but the ice cream is all in the same freezer so whenever I want some of your coffee or you want some of my pistachio, we help ourselves. You can persist in seeing that as the height of unfairness, but I’m not going to feel too sorry for you. At least you’ve got ice cream.
No, it doesn’t bother me that people who aren’t actually candidates for health INSURANCE can’t get it.
Insurance is a bet. It is not coverage or a promise to heal; it’s a bet. It’s a damn stupid way to finance a health care system, too, but that’s another argument.
People who already have expensive birth histories aren’t coming in and saying “I’d like to buy insurance against the unlikely possibility of a very expensive delivery, please.” They’re saying “I’m pretty sure my next birth is going to cost a lot of money, and I’d like to give you a little bit of money now and have you pay all my bills later.”
That’s not a bet; it doesn’t work within the insurance framework. I don’t object to people not being able to require insurers to give them free money. If we want to pay for the health care expenses of people whose health care expenses are known to be expensive (and we often do), fine – let’s start a charity for them, public or private, and raise money honestly.
And paying for the birth of a child != dog turd. Requiring people to pay for services they don’t want = dog turd.
Edited/substantial additions
Except that’s not how health insurance works, despite being called “insurance.” We call it insurance, but it’s a pool of money to pay for health care with high enough contributions from the beneficiaries to ensure profits for the companies that manage the pool of money. That it’s not the same as auto insurance or home insurance is a semantic oddity, not an argument for excluding maternity coverage.
You don’t think we should have insurance as currently constituted at all. Frankly, neither do I, though I’m sure we have radically different ideas of what a better arrangement would be.
But when this comes up, why is it that it’s always maternity coverage or contraception? And not say, diabetes, another situation where it’s a sure thing that the person will have known medical costs. Why don’t we hear Kyl saying, “Look, I don’t have diabetes, and if employers are required to cover diabetes, that makes my premiums higher”?
Now, I’m sure you’ll say you have no problem with diabetics being excluded either because it’s INSURANCE, but that’s not what we’re hearing in the discussion. As you said, you argue your side “and have your political allies in Washington do the same.” We’ll see how it comes out when the Republicans start arguing that all pre-existing conditions shouldn’t be covered because, hey, it’s INSURANCE.
We’ll see how it comes out when the Republicans start arguing that all pre-existing conditions shouldn’t be covered because, hey, it’s INSURANCE.
[Applause.]
Also, so far as I know, Stabenow is fine with the individual mandate piece of health care reform, in which everyone is required to carry health insurance. (Alas readers might remember this as the part of reform where Robert declared that he would be hiding his money under a mattress to prevent the government from requiring him to pay it in an excise tax due to his refusal to carry insurance.) If everyone has to have insurance, then there can be no moral hazard of the type that Robert @12 claims will occur.
Everyone who has been born in a hospital needed maternity care.