More On Sumner's Claim that ACA has Outlawed Healthcare Insurance

     I wrote a post last night about this claim-and some other Sumner claims. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/10/sumner-and-obamacare-whos-pants-are-on.html?showComment=1383175618970#c3578157265387348144

     I see that Edward, a regular Money Illusion reader dropped by which is welcome-as he is a pretty smart guy. Here are his comments:

    "Mike, why is catastrophic insurance being the only insurance not making sense?"

    "In every other insurance industry, catastrophic insurance is norm and standard. Your car insurance company doesn't pay for your new car at the dealership. Nor does it pay for your oil change, new tires and whatnot."

    "To those people who have pre-existing conditions, I say, lets have a public option (I hate the term "single payer" An option should be what public medicine is."

    "Weirdly, i think the British system (socialized medicine with private healthcare for those who are willing to pay) is better than the Canadian system on this. The Canadian system has "private" doctors billing the government for payment. But as long as they accept government funds, they are prohibited from taking private money to those who want to leap in front of the queue. Thats why I shudder whenever I hear the words 'single payer" from a liberal."

      http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/10/sumner-and-obamacare-whos-pants-are-on.html?showComment=1383175618970#c3578157265387348144

    My main point on this was not whether or not catastrophic insurance being the only insurance makes sense or not-though I would vote no myself as it will definitely not cover all the necessary basic costs of those who can't afford insurance-I'm not talking about the equivalent of a new car either-but whether Sumner's claim that it was outlawed is correct. Interestingly, the much maligned HeatlhCare.Gov website has information up on this and there are no glitches on this page. The answer is that catastrophic is available. 

    https://www.healthcare.gov/can-i-buy-a-catastrophic-plan/

    What nothing but catastrophic would do is greatly diminish the health insurance already available and I don't know anyone who can seriously say the problem is that there is too much healthcare choices available for those who can't afford it. The other trouble is that this would lead to very high deductibles I don't know what Edward thinks of when he hears 'single payer' from a liberal-I guess we'd get somewhere if I knew what he hears when he hears it from a conservative-just catastrophic? Medicare is an example of a single payer healthcare plan for the elderly and most people think it's done pretty well-certainly the GOP does as it never describes it's Ryan plan as being about simple repeal-as it does with Obamacare. What's ironic is Mike Konczal's point: basically what the GOP wants to do with Medicare is transform a single payer health care plan for the elderly into Obamacare for the elderly. Yet politics has led them to Obamacare Derangement syndrome-and it's their own plan. 

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/10/mitch-mcconnell-vs-mitch-mcconnell-on.html

   P.S. The British system may be great but again, Medicare for all would work pretty well as well, to be sure, I supported the public option vs. single payer during the debate over ACA as well-why not see how each does side by side. 

   P.S.S. The Obamacare website seems to be working much better now-the other day it kept freezing up but now I'm able to navigate it without any trouble. As Krugman says it the technology will be worked out one way or the other, whether by the November 31 deadline remains to be seen.