Lindsey Graham: Public Provision of Health Insurance is Terrible, Except When It’s Popular
Lindsey Graham talks to Ezra Klein about his opposition to the creation of a “public option” for people currently languishing on the individual health insurance market:
My belief is that no private-sector entity can survive over a long period of time competing against the government. The public option will be written by politicians. It will be generous. Nobody in my business worries about the bottom line. Eventually, the public option will dominate the marketplace because the political forces in the public sector are different than the economic forces in the private sector. Eventually, the private sector will give way.
Ezra asks the natural followup question: If government provision of health insurance is so terrible, why not scrap Medicare?
If you could start from scratch, would you scrap Medicare?
No! Medicare was a safety net for those seniors who couldn’t afford coverage. I buy into the idea of everyone having health coverage. You can have the public-private partnership in retirement. You can have a government-run system for those who are needy. But above that it’s best for the private sector to cover people. There’s still a government role. Look at the Wyden-Bennett bill. The government helps people buy their health care in the private sector. To me, that’s proper. I don’t mind helping people be covered in retirement. We’re not going to get rid of Medicare and there’s no reason to get rid of it. We just need to be sure it’s a well-run program and we can afford it.
This is nonsense. Medicare is not a means-tested program. It covers all senior citizens. It’s not a program of narrowly targeted subsidies to the very poor. It’s a public sector health insurance program. And Graham’s ideology clearly commits him to condemning it. But he doesn’t want to because it’s too popular.
27 Responses to “Lindsey Graham: Public Provision of Health Insurance is Terrible, Except When It’s Popular”
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August 10th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to be first-rate assclowns.
August 10th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Could he be thinking about Medicaid instead of Medicare and perhaps just doesn’t know WTF he is talking about generally speaking. The bar for republicans to be able to speak accurately and to know policy matter well is very very very low indeed.
Googling for 2 seconds brings “Medicaid is the United States health program for eligible individuals and families with low incomes and resources. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the states and federal government, and is managed by the state.” Wikipedia.
August 10th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Logical consistency is not popular.
August 10th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
My belief is that no private-sector entity can survive over a long period of time competing against the government.
Which is why, for example, we have no private high schools or universities. Once there were public high schools and state universities, all the parochial and prep schools and private colleges went out of existence…..
Similarly, all private detectives, bodyguards, and security guards also disappeared once there were police departments. Why would a rich person need or use a bodyguard considering that there are police able to respond….?
August 10th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
When has Senator Lindsay Graham ever shown himself to be a forthright representative of the people? The man is a wimp, a go-along; John McCain’s favorite lapdog until he lost the election. Lindsay Graham likes to grandstand and keep his face in the media, but he is shallow. He’d rather stick with sound bites “wise Latina,” “war on terror,” “Islamic fundamentalist extremists,” “victory in Iraq” and “government run healthcare” than to demonstrate deep understanding through the study of an issue. He supports the Republican free market, the wealthy white elite, and tax breaks for the wealthy. Graham would subscribe to healthcare reform as proposed by Charles Krauthammer in his recent column “Go Get Your Own.”
August 10th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Which is why, for example, we have no private high schools or universities. Once there were public high schools and state universities, all the parochial and prep schools and private colleges went out of existence…..
Bravo on the decline of standards in union-dominated public schools! Bravo!
Had it not been for the substantial elimination of competition (private education accounts for what, less than 10%), the unions would not have gotten away so easily with such awful standards.
Remind me why I switched to prep school and could not bear even thinking about possibly sending my children, if there were to be any, to any public save the most decent suburban ones.
August 10th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
we have a senator who isn’t ideologically consistent? shocking! great find, matt.
August 10th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
His logic — such as it is — makes no sense. He doesn’t want a public option because he, Lindsay Graham, would
make it too good. And he can’t trust himself to
say no.
But my favorite tortured logic is for the folks
who say that 1) gov’t healthcare would be too expensive and 2) it would drive private insurance out of
the market because they couldn’t make a dollar.
August 10th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Good points Stefan @ 4.
Also, there is no private mail service, private roads do not exist, no senior citizens have private insurance, there are only municipal recreational facilities, the only sources of music are state and local symphonies, the only possible way to get from point A to point B is via public transportation, and on and on we can go with examples where public involvement has clearly restricted our freedom and made life less worthwhile.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
“…the political forces in the public sector are different than the economic forces in the private sector.”
Economic forces? What economic forces?
We don’t have a consumer-based private healthcare sector. There isn’t any competition, at least not the kind of competition that the consumer can see (or benefit from).
Think about the car insurance commercials you see all the time on T.V…..they all advertise the same thing: “we’ve got the best prices.” When is the last time you saw an advertisement for a health insurance company like that?
I’ve never seen one. Competition my ass.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
You write, “[Senator Lindsay] Graham’s ideology clearly commits him to condemning it [Medicare]. But he doesn’t want to because it’s too popular.”
I think it might be more accurate to write, He doesn’t want to say so, because it’s too popular.
He fears letting us know that he’d abolish Medicare if he got the chance.
So he’s a liar, by omission, and a weasel.
And, I think, he’s not nearly as smart as he pretends to be.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Better dead than red, dammit.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Myles SG: “…my children, if there were to be any…”
God, there’s a thought to keep me awake at night. Luckily I don’t think I have to worry about it.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Remind me why I switched to prep school and could not bear even thinking about possibly sending my children, if there were to be any, to any public save the most decent suburban ones.
Because you’re a braying fop who wants to sire a brood of affected bowtie-wearing foplets?
August 10th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Remind me why I switched to prep school and could not bear even thinking about possibly sending my children, if there were to be any, to any public save the most decent suburban ones.
This sentence is either meant as a (nonsensical, given the context) command or is a spelling/grammar FAIL. Either way, that expensive education of yours doesn’t look like it’s paying dividends.
Seriously, if you’re going to go out of your way to parade your pretensions to erudition, it behooves you to proofread. After all, would-be aristocrats have fictions to maintain and failure to do so is decidedly not in the feudal spirit.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I think Lindsey Graham is just stumbling to articulate what he believes because it’d be unpopular: Medicare should be a safety net for low-income elderly “but above that it’s best for the private sector to cover people.” He’s saying Medicare is great for covering needy seniors but the problem is that it covers those that could afford their own coverage, too. Of course, he’s wrong – very few seniors could truly “afford” their own coverage in the current insurance market (pre-existing conditions and all that jazz). Likewise, he fears a public option because it’s about covering people that can’t afford private insurance but would end up covering everyone.
I don’t really agree with basically any of this, but I think that’s the charitable interpretation of what he’s saying.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
The best part of that interview is when Ezra catches Graham saying we should shop for medical care like we do cars, and Ezra asks how you do that when you are laying on a gurney, and Graham goes on to admit he was making stuff up and dresses the nonsense Ezra exposed up in some more nonsense.
Look, as I mention over at Klein’s place, Lindsey Graham lied to the Supreme Court during the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case. It is simply pointless to try and have a “honest” conversation with someone who is bold enough to lie to the Supreme Court.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Lindsey’s peers pay alot of attention to the bottom line, campaign donations and PAC contributions.
As for co-ops taking over private insurers, which rural electrical co-ops took over large publicly traded electrial companies?
The government turned into a huge general contractor under Clinton/Bush. It mostly writes checks to private businesses. UnitedHealth has a division providing state Medicaid and SCHIP on a contract basis.
Graham twisted himself in a logical Gordian Knot. Don’t they know how stupid they sound?
August 10th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
A bit depressing that Ezra doesn’t call him out on the Medicare-as-means-tested claim. Is this what happens when you go to work for WaPo? Or is it just too difficult to call a Senator a liar to his face? If the latter, maybe I’ve been too harsh on most of our media.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
A bit depressing that Ezra doesn’t call him out on the Medicare-as-means-tested claim. Is this what happens when you go to work for WaPo? Or is it just too difficult to call a Senator a liar to his face? If the latter, maybe I’ve been too harsh on most of our media.
In Klein’s case, I think it’s just that Graham spouts so many lies so quickly that it becomes impossible to even catch them all, much less address each one.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
If you read the rest of the interview, I think it’s obvious that Graham knows about Medicare and Medicaid, that he knows the difference between the two, and that when he talks about “a government-run system for those who are needy,” he is referring to Medicaid without naming it. When he talks of a “public-private partnership in retirement,” it is a clear reference to Medicare and its associated programs, some of which involve private insurance. It makes complete sense to talk about the two programs in tandem, as they currently represent the bulk of Federally provided insurance. I think Graham was just making clear that he substantially supports the status quo on Federally provided insurance, and would scrap neither program.
Graham is a Republican, so it goes without saying that he’s a mendacious and dangerous man, whose mission is to support all manner of terrible policies and to try to prevent good ones from being enacted. That said, he is more willing to buck his party and base than you could reasonably expect from a Republican representing South Carolina. In recent memory, he took the correct position on Sotomayor, on bank nationalization, and immigration. A much better record than that of his colleague Jim DeMint, methinks.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
[...] Wisconsin Health Insurance and Affordable Health Insurance … (0) 1 Blog discussions:Google:Matthew Yglesias » Lindsey Graham: Public Provision of Health …by myglesiasMy belief is that no private-sector entity can survive over a long period of time [...]
August 10th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
So much for the Death Panels, then.
Seriously, when did conservatives and libertarians start believing that government agencies vigorously work to avoid spending their whole budget each year?
August 10th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
My favorite is: “A public health care program would be a nightmare! Going to the doctor would be like waiting in line at the DMV. Wait lists for life-saving treatments would be months long. Bureaucratic Death Panels would make your grandmother sign a DNR and refuse to pay for her heart pills because she’s never volunteered for ACORN.
There’s no way the private sector can ever compete with that!”
August 11th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Lindsey Graham is not the best hope on the GOP side in health care reform, but MY is not being fair to what he actually said. Right before the quoted comment, he said:
“Every American on Medicare pays $96 a month. That’s 25 percent of the cost of the service. Why should the government subsidize my health-care premium when I retire? I’ll have money available. I think we should look at that.”
So he obviously knows and acknowledges that Medicare is not a means-tested program. But he’s openly wondering whether it should be. And he’s openly questioning a popular part of Medicare, namely the part which covers people at a good price even if they’re not poor. So I don’t get the criticism.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:49 am
I think the answer here it to simply stop offering health insurance to members of Congress. Surely they have the wherewithal and resources to go out and purchase coverage on their own.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Since when has Lindsey Graham acted in a way that would lead you to expect anything other than politically and ideologically calculated dishonesty?