Heidi Alexander: “But today what I wish to do in the next few minutes is explain why I believe I am correct, that under the President's…”

“But today what I wish to do in the next few minutes is explain why I believe I am correct, that under the President's health insurance plan, which is based upon the Senate plan, for millions of Americans in the individual market, premiums would go up because of one-size-fits-all government mandates, because of taxes that are passed on to consumers; but for other reasons as well--by shifting costs. When you dump 15 million people or 18 million people into a program called Medicaid, what happens is, we do not pay the doctors and the hospitals well enough to take care of those folks. So those providers shift the costs to people who are paying with private insurance, and premiums go up. Costs for young people in the individual market will go up under this plan because if you put in a rule that says my insurance at my age cannot go up more than a certain amount compared with my son's insurance, then his insurance goes up, and because a scheme like the Democratic plan depends upon requiring everybody to buy insurance. There is a weak provision for that, and I suspect many young people will rather pay the $750 fine rather than buy a $2,500 insurance policy, which they think they cannot afford. The President made the point in his usual very persuasive way that, wait a minute, actually you would be getting better insurance. But that is comparing apples and oranges.…”