But "Obamacare" Costs Too Much!
Obamacare Costs Too Much! But Why?
Had, or tried to have a conversation with a Republican friend of mine. Yes, I still have those. I completely agreed with him about the weak spot in the ACA for independent contractors who pay excessively high rates for insurance with high deductibles and copays. Many are hard-working Americans who are not part of larger pools including public educators for example. Why can they not also join large pools for independent contractors?
When I suggested that most insurance works by having lots of people paying in who don't need it to support those who do (most drivers don't have accidents every year but pay insurance every year, and young folks, barring a catastrophic accident are healthy) . Requiring people, all people to have insurance (health insurance under the ACA is no different than requiring drivers to have it when they hit the road) is the only way to work it out actuarily. My friend insisted this was Communism, no it's just good sense. Try to get a home mortgage without buying insurance on the place.
Our conversation meandered to talk about the growing suspicion that the Trump Campaign and Transition Team and possibly Trump himself may have colluded (cooperated) with Russian agents to turn the election in their favor. As evidence I cited the fact that Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Carter Page, and Roger Stone and possibly Jared Kushner all had contact with Russian agents including the recently recalled Kusniak, the Russian Diplomat. My dear friends seemed more concerned that they had been "unmasked " (exposed) then concerned about them working with an unfriendly foreign power to interfere with our electoral process.
They were also concerned, apparently, that Susan Rice was the one who unmasked Flynn and others as part of her inquiry to the NSA and that Loretta Lynch (Attorney General under Obama) and Bill Clinton colluded to push the election towards Hillary (by easing up on the investigation of Hillary's email server). Oh , but it was okay for Trump to pressure Comey to ease up, and okay to fire him when he didn't. Or so they maintained. Susan Rice was doing her job and apparently lacked the authority to “unmask” anyone, it was the NSA that decided Flynn and others in the Trump team were putting our country at risk and needed to be exposed.
This is what is called a "false equivalent" primarily because there is a big difference, in my estimation between Americans of the same party working together to expose wrong doing by the other party, and the other party working with a foreign power hostile to our interests - Russians no less. It was at this point in the conversation I excused myself.