Matt Yglesias

Mike Pence Loves to Use Government Health Care

As I’ve noted previously, in addition to their government-financed health insurance members of congress can take advantage of direct provision of health care services by government employees throught the Office of the Attending Physician. It turns out that hard-right congressman Mike Pence (R-Indiana) is actually a big fan of this:

“Just about not a week goes by that I don’t see the House physician staff with a gurney running down the hallway to address an issue affecting an American or tourist visiting the Capitol building,” said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Columbus. “I really do have a sense that the House physician’s office is more about providing immediate services during sessions of Congress, frankly the way the emergency room of a hospital would provide for any American. They’re on site. They’re already through security.”

Pence said he has used the office for physicals and stress tests while using his regular health insurance plan for more advanced procedures such as skin cancer surgery.

Pence seems to me to have this right in terms of his personal habits. And it also seems to me that establishing a nationwide network of quality public health clinics at which ordinary citizens could receive these kind of services would be very useful. There’s an element of medicine that involves deploying cutting edge treatments, and there’s a reasonable case to be made for keeping provision of that sort of thing in private hands (note that this is compatible with single-payer health insurance as in Canada) in order to keep innovation going. But a lot of medical care is about competent application of well-understood testing & treatment regimes. This kind of thing is often done quite well by public agencies when given the opportunity, and it’s an extremely cost-effective way of helping people out.

Mike Pence Doesn’t Understand Health Insurance Exchange or FEHBP

Another one form the annals of “Mike Pence isn’t very bright” comes to us courtesy of my colleague Igor Volsky who observes this to-and-fro in which Rep. Pence says people should buy health insurance the way members of congress do, and then proceeds to condemn “government-run” health insurance exchanges:

Republicans believe that in addition to tort reform what we should allow Americans to do is to purchase health insurance the way members of Congress can, the way all federal employees can and that is to buy health insurance across state lines to get out there and allow new insurance products to be created in a new competitive marketplace…even the private insurance elements in the Exchanges, you know, are essentially government controlled and government dictated.

This is not—at all—an accurate description of how members of congress get their health insurance. Members of congress purchase health insurance via the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program which we had occasion to discuss yesterday. This operates, essentially, the way the Health Insurance Exchange works in the major reform proposals. A large potential pool of customers is assembled that’s very attractive to insurers. But in order to get at the customers, you have to play by certain rules. As Volsky says “private insurers participating in FEHBP cannot deny coverage to applicants with pre-existing conditions, charge exorbitant out of pocket fees, rescind coverage or discriminate based on gender or age.” In other words, they’re subject to similar regulatory mandates as would be put in place in the Exchange.

If federal employees were simply invited to buy health insurance across state lines, they would presumably just all be stranded on the dysfunctional individual insurance market. Pence doesn’t sit on any of the committees relevant to health care or to federal personnel management, which perhaps explains why he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. At the same time, that only raises the question of why he’s talking about this on television at all.

Honesty and TV Booking

House Democrats have the congress considering a bill that involves around $540 billion in new taxes, along with several hundred billion in offsetting spending cuts, in order to pay for a substantial expansion of health insurance coverage in the United States. $540 billion is a lot of money. But it’s a lot less money than $800 billion or $1 trillion. And yet Steve Benen observes that Rep Mike Pence (R-IN), a member of the GOP leadership, keeps going on TV to repeat the fake larger number:

Either way, Pence probably shouldn’t be chairman of the House Republican Caucus, and he certainly shouldn’t be invited onto national television regularly to repeat bogus claims to the public.

It seems like this should be a no-brainer. Politicians engage in a volume of misrepresentation that is, at first, quite shocking. Then you realize it’s not shocking. Politicians wouldn’t lie of lying was likely to generate newspaper headlines like “Pence Lies About Health Insurance” or got bookers to say things like “sorry, Senator, you can’t come on our network anymore since you were so dishonest or ill-informed in your two previous segments.” But nobody does business that way so why not lie? It’s easier to campaign against $1 trillion in new taxes than $540 billion in new taxes.

Mike Pence’s Dangerous Game

Who will tell the Iranians that Mike Pence (R-IN) is a fool?

Tom Ricks watches a Mike Pence (R-IN) appearance on Fox News and comes away fearing for the lives of Iran’s brave protestors:

I just hope that Iranian protestors know not to take this clown seriously.

This problem goes to the essence of strategy: A “tough” stance that Fox’s anchors are pushing might feel good, but it likely would be unproductive. A sober stance of the sort that Obama has taken is more difficult but likely more effective in the long run.

For quite some time now I’ve been trying to emphasize the point that Pence is not an intelligent man. It’s good to see Ricks notice this as well. But I think it’s important for people in the journalism game to get a bit more interdisciplinary on this. Oftentimes people are inclined to grant the benefit of the doubt. A Ricks might say “well, this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about on national security, but maybe his energy ideas make sense.” Ask around, though, and you’ll see it’s not the case. He’s just got dumb ideas on all sorts of topics. And it’s worth aggressively making that point. It’s all well and good to “hope” that Iranian protestors recognize that he’s a “clown” and shouldn’t be taken seriously. But the odds are actually pretty good that foreigners will take the situation at face value—he’s one of the highest-ranking and most prominent members of a major political party, so surely his pronouncements should be taken seriously. Right? Because if such a high-level party leader were, in fact, a “clown” then people would hear about that. Right?

Mike Pence is Not an Intelligent Man

I’ve made this point before, but one of the salient characteristics of the House GOP’s big “ideas guy” Mike Pence (R-IN) is that he’s pretty dumb. Watch this Hardball interview, for example, and wait about 90 seconds in when Chris Matthews asks Pence whether or not he believes in evolution:

Now the answer Pence gives is stupid and nonsensical. But sometimes a canny, clever politician says something that doesn’t make sense as part of his canny strategy. But watch Pence’s hesitation, his stalling for time, his JV tactic of re-stating the question. He doesn’t know off the top of his head whether or not he believes in evolution. He needs to stall and think it through. It’s pathetic.

Meanwhile, Satyam Khanna reminds us that Pence, along with noted buffoon Michele Bachmann (R-MN), will be crafting their caucus’ energy strategy.