House Members Discovering That Health Care Status Quo Is Really Bad

Marin Cogan reports on the mismatch between House members' zeal to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and the realities of their experiences with the health insurance market:

"I have a niece who has pre-existing conditions, and I worry about her if she was ever to lose her job," said Florida Rep. Richard Nugent, one of the freshman lawmakers who declined federal health insurance benefits.

I worry too. But Nugent should note something. He worries about this only in case his niece actually loses her job. If she voluntarily switches to another job, she's fine. But that's thanks to a regulation that allows people who maintain continuity of coverage to keep it notwithstanding adverse selection issues. And the only reason Nugent's niece's employer offers group health benefits at all is that large insurers receive massive tax subsidies to do so. The health insurance market mostly works for most people most of the time only because it already involves massive government intervention. In an actual free market for health care, everyone would be like an unemployed niece with a pre-existing condition. You'd phone up an insurance company and say "I want to buy insurance that will pay for my health care if I get sick" and the company will quite naturally expect that you're already sick and refuse to sell it at any non-extortionate price.