An open letter to Senator John Cornyn

Dear Senator Cornyn,

You are an idiot.

In a brief chat with the Huffington Post on Tuesday, National Republican Senatorial Committee chair John Cornyn (R-Tex.) implicitly acknowledged that Republicans are content with allowing some elements of Obama's reform into law. And they'd generally ignore those elements when taking the fight to their Democrat opponents as November approaches.

"There is non-controversial stuff here like the preexisting conditions exclusion and those sorts of things," the Texas Republican said. "Now we are not interested in repealing that. And that is frankly a distraction."

Assuming that you said what you have been quoted as saying, you're an idiot.

Do you not understand that forcing companies into covering pre-existing conditions takes them out of the "insurance" business entirely? Do you not understand what "insurance" actually means? Do you not understand that "insurance" only works if you pool resources, covering the people who get sick with the premiums of those that don't? Senator Cornyn, how long would an auto insurance company stay in business if they had to cover pre-existing conditions? "Here's my check, thanks for the policy, by the way, my car was totalled last week and I need you to replace it..." Who would pay for life insurance if they could sign a form, certify a check, and have their loved ones walk it down to the "life insurance" company after they died?

Forcing companies to cover pre-existing conditions without forcing people to buy insurance just guarantees that the only people buying "insurance" policies are SICK PEOPLE! And what the hell is the point of laundering their money through "insurance" companies instead of just giving it to doctors?

The point is, the mandate to cover pre-existing conditions is ONLY feasible in the context of a system with an individual mandate. Otherwise, there's no incentive whatsoever for healthy people to buy "insurance." You can't invalidate the individual mandate and leave the rest in place. The system that the Democrats rammed through this week is doomed to collapse, but the pre-existing condition mandate for companies with no individual mandate for consumers would pre-collapse. It cannot possibly work. You might as well require hospitals to power their lights using perpetual-motion machines. It's a fantasy of which one second's thought should disabuse the meanest intellect.

And so, to suggest that you aren't going to touch the "pre-existing conditions" requirement for "insurance" companies is essentially to say that you're going to leave the whole plan alone.

Thanks for nothing.

(Not very) Respectfully (at the moment) yours,

Lyford Beverage


UPDATE: The American Spectator website has a walk-back, of sorts, from the NRSC, quoting Cornyn as saying

“Some media outlets have misrepresented my position on repealing and replacing the President’s $2.6 trillion health care bill. Make no mistake about it: I fully support repealing this Washington takeover of health care and replacing it with a bipartisan bill that lowers the cost of health care.

I'm glad to read that from him, but, assuming that he actually said the words "there is non-controversial stuff here like the preexisting conditions exclusion and those sorts of things..." then everything I wrote stands. It is what it is.