The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
And the Bear Tender Says, ‘Why the Long Face?’
“Texting Man Nearly Walks Into Bear”–headline, 9 News website (Australia), April 11
News of the Tautological
“Immigration Law Opponents Want to See It Repealed”–headline, Associated Press, April 10
APples and Oranges
If you’re a Supreme Court justice–and you know who you are–there’s something the Associated Press [AP] would like you to consider before you make up your mind irrevocably about the ObamaCare cases. “A possible misunderstanding about President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul could cloud Supreme Court deliberations on its fate, leaving the impression that the law’s insurance requirement is more onerous than it actually is,” claims the AP:
During the recent oral arguments some of the justices and the lawyers appearing before them seemed to be under the impression that the law does not allow most consumers to buy low-cost, stripped-down insurance to satisfy its controversial coverage requirement.
In fact, the law provides for a cheaper “bronze” plan that is broadly similar to today’s so-called catastrophic coverage policies for individuals, several insurance experts said.
The AP and its so-called experts are trying to confuse rather than clarify matters. The government’s argument is that because “everybody is going to need” health care, the mandate that individuals buy insurance does not conscript people into commerce but merely “regulates” commerce in which they were going to engage anyway. This is dubious for several reasons, but here is the objection the AP now claims to be answering:
“If I understand the law, the policies that you’re requiring people to purchase . . . must contain provision for maternity and newborn care, pediatric services and substance use treatment,” said Chief Justice John Roberts. “It seems to me that you cannot say that everybody is going to need . . . substance use treatment or pediatric services, and yet that is part of what you require them to purchase.”
And here is the AP’s rebuttal:
The law’s bronze plan isn’t exactly robust coverage. It would require policyholders to spend thousands of dollars of their own money before insurance kicks in. That’s how catastrophic coverage works now.
It means anyone–particularly younger, healthy people–can satisfy the health care law’s insurance requirement without paying full freight for comprehensive coverage they may not need. . . .
On the surface, the minimum benefits requirement does seem to mandate comprehensive coverage. But another provision of the law works in the opposite direction, and the two have to be weighed together.
This second provision allows insurance companies to sell policies that have widely different levels of annual deductibles and copayments. A “platinum” plan would cover 90 percent of expected health care expenses, but on the bottom tier a bronze plan only covers 60 percent. Employer plans now cover about 80 percent.
Do you see the problem here? The AP is confusing a difference of degree (coverage at 60% vs. 80% or 90%) with a difference of kind (coverage of catastrophic vs. inessential services). Bronze-plan buyers would still have to purchase coverage for all the services the chief justice mentioned, it’s just that the policy is cheaper because the benefits are less.
The bronze catastrophic benefits are less, too, so that the ObamaCare policy would be a lousy deal for someone who needs catastrophic coverage but not all the mandatory bells and whistles.
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