During his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh made a very blunt case we don’t hear stated so clearly by Republicans — that not going through health insurance is better than using it, because it creates a direct link between the patient and the price, and creates the incentive to shop around:
“You oughtta try this, folks, just a standard doctor visit, offer to pay for it yourself,” said Limbaugh. “I guarantee it’ll cost you less than if you use your insurance.”
Josh Marshall commented on this idea yesterday: “To be clear, such an approach probably would cut costs because most people just couldn’t afford to get a lot of care, which is a great way of cutting costs. But remember, the problem according to most Republicans in Congress isn’t that there’s not enough insurance or that it’s not good enough. It’s that there’s too much. The problem is that you have insurance. And good policy will take it away from you.”
