George Will took Berkeley professor Robert Reich to school on this week’s edition of ABC’s This Week.
You almost felt sorry for Reich. Almost, but not quite.
Reich: The health insurers are not, George, you said they’re popular and everybody likes their health insurer. They like their doctor. They hate their health insurer. And health insurance is going up in terms of rates 20, 30, 40, 50 percent in many states. In fact, Goldman Sachs just this past week has said to its many of its investors, “Invest in some insurance companies because they don’t have competition, and they have, are exhibiting huge profits.” That is money directly out of the pockets of Americans.
Will: A, you say they have huge profits. As you know, confiscate all the profits of all the health insurance companies, with those profits you could finance our healthcare for 48 hours. What you do for the next 363 days I don’t know. Second, you say there’s not enough competition? Fine, let them compete in a national market across state lines.
Reich: Yes, let them compete across state lines, fine. But not a race to the bottom. Set minimum federal standards because we’ve seen over and over again that the recipients of health insurance don’t know what they are buying very often. Until there are common standards, minimal standards, then people are going to be taken. And that is what’s happened over and over again.
Will: There you have the premise of this legislation and the core of today’s liberalism: the American people are such dopes they can’t be counted upon to buy their own insurance.
A few minutes later, Reich was undoubtedly in the producer’s office begging not to be booked on the same show as Will ever again.
H/t: NewsBusters.org
