Healthcare

Budget Director: Insurance Coverage Isn’t Our Goal

Written by SK Ashby

I feel like this is both true and also not something Mulvaney should state so bluntly if he wants to further his cause.

Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney appeared on MSNBC this morning where he confessed that covering people isn't the goal.

“We’re looking at it in a different way, Mark, because insurance is not really the end goal here, is it?” Mulvaney responded. “It's one of the conservatives' – one of the Republicans' complaints about the Affordable Care Act from the very beginning: It was a great way to get insurance and a lousy way to actually be able to go to the doctor."

If insurance coverage isn't the goal, what is the goal?

“So we’re choosing instead to look at what we think is more important to ordinary people: Can they afford to go to the doctor? And we are convinced it will be possible for more people to get better care at the doctor under this plan than it was under Obamacare.

The idea that more people will be able to see a doctor without insurance is fucking farcical, to say the least. Some doctors may not even see patients without health insurance. And, depending on the doctor and the nature of your problem, a single visit could cost thousands of dollars.

I'm sure you recall that Trump said his healthcare plan would include "insurance for everybody," but I find that to be barely worth mentioning outside of the opportunity to point out that he's a liar. But I'm not sure that's even true. To say that he "lied" is to say that he actually understands any of this. I don't think he does. Trump doesn't understand a goddamn thing. Trump and Trumpism is one big vacuous fraud.

Until such time this country comes to its senses and passes Medicare-for-all, insurance is all we have.