Comments on: A site showing health insurance reform talking points, counterpoints, countercounterpoints?

Question: A site showing health insurance reform talking points, counterpoints, countercounterpoints?

ahaynes — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:18:16 -0800

Where can I find a concise health insurance reform argument-counterargument-countercounterargument talking point "tree"? e.g. my congressman, TM(R) says "you should be able to buy insurance from out of state..."; but Ezra Klein says that would yield a Race to the Bottom, like with credit card cos. TM says "...like we already do with auto insurance"; but an E.K. commenter says that with car insurance, the insurer must obey the insuree's state regs. (is this true?) So, do all of these exist in a boiled-down form somewhere? Basically, I'm looking for a site that sheds light on health insurance talking points the way skepticalscience.com does for climate.

By: Valet

Valet — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:32:32 -0800

This is a great question and I'm looking forward to reading the answers -- which is to say I don't have a good one myself, but I do try to follow the health care subject heading on PolitiFact, which balances some claims. It's more tipped towards the verifiable rather than the predictive -- i.e. you won't get an analysis of something like Klein's 'race to the bottom', but you can get straight answers about CBO predictions, cost projections, coverage rates etc. under several different plans.

By: alms

alms — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:50:51 -0800

If you're reading Ezra Klein then I think you're pretty well informed. He does a very good job of taking on specific arguments and showing why they do (or don't) hold water. In contrast, I haven't seen anyone systematically taking down his arguments.

The fact that Ezra comes out in favor of reform... Well, it's similar to climate science. When you boil down all the arguments and counterarguments there is some objective truth. As with climate science, value judgements do ultimately enter the equation: do we want to stabilize the system? Is it worth the disruption? Ezra is pretty clear about his position on that, which gives you the option of factoring it into your reading.

Of all that said, I'd also be very interested in a source that has a more impartial presentation.