Characterizing subsidies to insurance companies and health care industry as subsidies to people
“Supreme Court upholds health care subsidies” is a Boston Globe article that is typical of the press coverage of the Supreme Court’s ruling that the federal government can ladle out tax dollars in all 51 jurisdictions nationwide. In practice it is the insurance companies and health care industry that receive these dollars. Even a purportedly “subsidized” American will typically pay more for health care than his or her counterpart in a country where the industry consumes a lower percentage of GDP. Yet this manna from Washington is characterized as something that individual voters receive: “The justices said in a 6-3 ruling that the subsidies that 8.7 million people currently receive…” (emphasis added, from the Globe article).
Without any mention of the fact that U.S. federal and state governments established policies that have driven up the cost of health care, it is easy to see how someone reading one of these articles would be grateful for the beneficence of the central planners.
Related:
- “The Soviet comrade tours Washington, D.C.” (USDA driving up food prices with market restrictions and then giving 50 million Americans food stamps to help pay the new higher prices).
- “Insurance and Hospital Industries Relieved as Supreme Court Upholds Health-Law Subsidies” (WSJ, 6/25/2015), noted that “Hospitals have benefited from a rise in paying customers under the law” and “’It is business as usual and that is good for us,’ said Alan Miller, chief executive of Universal Health Services Inc.” and “Much of the health-care industry’s attention will now be focused on the possibility of huge insurance deals that could knit together some of the industry’s biggest players and challenge the negotiating power of hospitals and doctor groups.”