McConnell Had It Right: Government Should Not Pursue Universal Coverage

Posted by Michael F. Cannon at http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/mcconnell-had-it-right-government-should-not-pursue-universal-coverage/

I’m a bit late to this party, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) was of course right to tell Fox News’ Chris Wallace last weekend that the federal government should not pursue universal coverage:

Wallace: In your replacement [for ObamaCare], how would you provide universal coverage?
McConnell: Well, first let me say the single best thing we can do for the American health care system is to get rid of ObamaCare…
Wallace: But if I may sir, you talk about “repeal and replace.” How would you provide universal coverage?
McConnell: …We need to go step by step to replace it with more modest reforms…that would deal with the principal issue, which is cost…
Wallace: …What specifically are you going to do to provide universal coverage to the 30 million people who are uninsured?
McConnell: That is not the issue. The question is, how can you go step by step to improve the American health care system…
Wallace: …If you repeal ObamaCare, how would you protect those people with pre-existing conditions?
McConnell: …That’s the kind of thing that ought to be dealt with at the state level…

Naturally, the Church of Universal Coverage caught the vapors. But Time‘s Mark Halperin says McConnell’s stance, while embarrassing, is “not a politically dangerous place to be”:
McConnell would have seemed less evasive and could have stopped Wallace in his tracks had he said, “We will not pursue universal coverage because that causes more people–not fewer–to fall through the cracks in our health care sector.”