GOP Attorney General Suing Over Obamacare Supports Single-Payer: ‘I Trust The Government More’

[kpete]

Source: Think Progress

GOP Attorney General Suing Over Obamacare Supports Single-Payer: ‘I Trust The Government More’
By Scott Keyes posted from ThinkProgress Health on Mar 30, 2012 at 1:20 pm


WASHINGTON, DC — According to one Republican attorney general in the lawsuit against the health care individual mandate, the problem with Obamacare is that it’s not a government takeover of health care.
ThinkProgress spoke with Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Caldwell opposes Obamacare and the individual mandate, but for a different reason than most of his fellow litigants: it props up the private health insurance industry. “Insurance companies are the absolute worst people to handle this kind of business,” he declared. “I trust the government more than insurance companies.” Caldwell went on to endorse the idea of a single-payer health care system, saying it’d “be a whole lot better” than Obamacare:


KEYES: You don’t think the subsidies for low-income people are going to be helpful?

CALDWELL: No, no. The worst thing you can do is give it to an insurance company. I want to make my point. All insurance companies are controlled in their particular state. If you have a hurricane come up the east coast, the first one that’s going to leave you when they gotta pay too many claims is an insurance company. Insurance companies are the absolute worst people to handle this kind of business. I trust the government more than insurance companies. If the government wants to put forth a policy where they will pay for everything and you won’t have to go through an insurance policy, that’d be a whole lot better.

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/03/30/454261/buddy-caldwell-private-insurance/

[shawn703]

1. Lies

[Nancy Waterman]

2. He supports it until Obama is for it

then it will be the a socialistic monster that will destroy the country.

[Dawson Leery]

3. Sure he does.

[savalez]

4. Just like Newt supported the mandate back in the day?

These guys always support the way it is not being done as a way to pretend they support Health Care reform.

[emulatorloo]

6. Well put.

[emulatorloo]

5. More manipulative Republican bullshit.

They will say ANYTHING. And the they will turn on a dime and say the opposite.

[eridani]

8. There actually is a group called Republicans for Single Payer

They keep getting their website hijacked by dating services, though.

[yurbud]

19. are you sure you weren't looking at Republicans for Single PLAYERS?

[OnyxCollie]

7. I trust the government more, too.

Posters here are attacking this Attorney General because they support insurance companies, I guess.

Either that, or they feel that ANY CRITICISM IS AN ATTACK ON OBAMA AND MUST BE STOPPED.

[emulatorloo]

14. I'm attacking him because I think he is a liar

See savalez's post #4.

Typical Republican 101

[penndragon69]

9. This is rare!

I actually AGREE with a republican for once.

Granted, he may be full of shit and will do a 180
if single payer ever happened.....but we can dream
can't we?

However, ACA is at least a start in reigning in the abuses
of the insurance cartels and their unbridled greed.

[newspeak]

18. I don't know

but the insurance industry during the katrina and florida hurricanes, people really did get screwed. People who paid premiums for years and never filed a claim, were screwed by the insurance companies.

So, why would you keep paying a for profit insurance company who may or may not pay your claim after you've had to pay the deductible?

Seeing first hand what the insurance companies did to his state; maybe he is for single payer.

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. I agree with him.

Broken clock and all that, but hey - I'll take that POV from anyone who wants to push for it.

Medicare Part E (as in Everyone)

[Raksha]

11. That's my take on it too, Ruby.

I see it as an indication of the tremendous grassroots support for single-payer.

[Uncle Joe]

12. I agree with him but as to whether he's truly being sincere or not, there's two critical points to

consider.

1. He's from Louisiana and after Hurricane Katrina, they know all too well how insurance corporations operate.

2. By supporting this mandate; that will empower and enrich the dysfunctional, counterproductive, inefficient and immoral for profit "health" insurance industry; the primary villains of our health care woes, virtually assuring them a monopoly and massive numbers of captured customers, we've given the Republicans an opening on the moral high ground re: this issue.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[Dragonfli]

15. I certainly have nothing to add to that, well put /nt

[Swede Atlanta]

13. Well let me check my pants.......

While I am skeptical of this position, fully believing this is just a ploy to support something the President has not pushed, this may be progress.

There is something fundamentally wrong with having healthcare be a business of profit. That position is very different from "socialized" medicine.

I am not in favor of nationalizing hospitals, clinics, etc. and making healthcare workers employees of the federal government.

I would like to see competition between hospitals, clinics, doctors, etc. for the business of patients based on the quality of care, health outcomes, etc.

In order for that to happen we need to ensure that doctors, clinics, hospitals, etc. are adequately compensated, even for profit, for the enterprise to thrive.

But we don't need an insurance company in the mix that sucks off the top and tries to deny coverage to the insured and screw the providers.

[Thrill]

16. He's full of shit

He would be against it, if it had any chance of becoming law

[Yo_Mama]

17. Isn't what he's saying obvious?

All insurance companies do is deny claims. There are few decent ones, but very few left. They exist to deny care. Those state insurance cos set up to handle state pools deny, deny, deny. If you are a doctor trying to get approval for very necessary care from one of them you have battle scars.

How creating a system that forces people into lousy coverage (30% copays?) and forces the doctors and patients to fight desperately to actually get the theoretical benefits is a benefit I cannot see!

The NFIB may be part of this suit, but originally they desperately wanted health care reform. For small businesses, this is a huge issue, and it is one of the chief reasons they are limited in expanding. From their POV, the pressure on them was made far worse, because the big companies were cut-out and still can self-insure, so the small companies know their costs are doomed to go up.

For older people, our current health care coverage system is a chief cause of age discrimination because companies don't hire older people if they have to insure them because it makes them non-competitive.

Yes, the companies on the whole strongly support ideas that may have seemed radical a generation ago. But with half the system taken over by the government already, and the government insurance constantly shifting costs onto the private insurers, there is a reason why conservatives think our system needs to change.

Martians probably realize the US system needs to change.

Even Republicans should be able to speak the obvious truth without being criticized for being honest.