Should-Read: Erica Grieder: The GOP’s ‘Better Care’ act is better than you think

Should-Read: Is this for real? I think Erica Grieder fails the Turing test. Guys and gals at The Week: this is no way to build the reputation as a trustworthy information intermediary you need to survive as anything other than a monstrous clickbait and eyeball-glue farm:

The “losers” from ObamaCare are “young invincibles” being charged more for their insurance because of the mandate and the cross-subsidization from young to old (and who will benefit in their turn when they get old), and people who had had cheap low-quality insurance who now have much better and somewhat more costly insurance. The second group are big winners in any sensible actuarial sense. The first group are net winners as well because they will age and they will develop “preexisting conditions”.

But even if Grieder’s claims about “losers” from ObamaCare weren’t fatuous, to complain about ObamaCare because it “raises premiums and deductibles” for some and “left millions… uninsured” while providing enormous net benefits in terms of coverage, treatment, and health and then turn around and endorse BCRA which raises premiums and deductibles even more and leaves an extra 22 million uninsured…

These are the words of a TrumpBot. Not of a reporter:

Erica Grieder: The GOP’s ‘Better Care’ act is better than you think: “While the Affordable Care Act has surely helped millions of Americans… http://theweek.com/articles/707712/gops-better-care-act-better-than-think

…it has also still left millions of Americans uninsured, and many more with higher premiums and deductibles than they had in 2009, when Democrats promised that their plan would deliver precisely the opposite…. Democrats are reluctant to acknowledge that ObamaCare’s conservative critics were correct in predicting such problems, and that in some cases, at least, their objections were rooted in concern for the Americans who would be disproportionately affected by them….

There’s a lot to like about the Better Care Reconciliation Act. It’s a market-oriented plan that’s serious about the trade-offs involved in such an approach. If you want to remove some bureaucratic hurdles and government largesse from the health-care market, as many conservatives do, then some people will lose coverage, and others will see an increase in their out-of-pocket costs. That’s how markets work, even if the architects of ObamaCare refused to believe it….

Better Care is realistic, not nihlistic… recognizes that the government can and should play a role in situations where the market, if left to its own devices, has merciless implications… largely preserves the protections the 2009 law established for Americans with pre-existing conditions, and provides reinsurance for the insurers who might have balked at doing so. That was a humane and worthwhile achievement which Democrats deserve credit for, even if they are heartless monsters who left millions of Americans uninsured….

The Congressional Budget Office… found… that… the legislation would result in an additional 22 million Americans being uninsured in 2026…. The logic underlying this projection was debatable, but its political implications are clear cut. The Democrats who touted ObamaCare as a plan that would make comprehensive health insurance affordable to the average American are out of power, at the time being. But perhaps they will regain control of Congress in 2018. And if so, we can all look forward to seeing them unveil their secret plan.

If you try to untangle an argument from Grieder, is has three parts:

1. I don’t believe that the policies will have the effects that CBO thinks they will have.
2. I think BCRA removes bureaucratic hurdles! YAY!!
3. I think BCRA removes government largesse! YAY!!

But what bureaucratic hurdles does Erica Grieder believe that BCRA removes? Is it the individual mandate? But substituting a continuous-coverage provision for the individual mandate adds rather than subtracts bureaucratic complexity. And what unworthy government largesse does Erica Grieder think BCRA removes? Does she have evidence that Medicaid is currently too gold-plated, and that cutting back on Medicaid passes benefit-cost tests?