As debate rages on about how to reform the Affordable Care Act, it's becoming clear that there are both regular people and lawmakers who don't understand how health insurance works.
These are the men who don't want to pay for women's health care, the people who don't think they should have to subsidize the cost of others' birth control (especially if they object to it on moral grounds), and, most frighteningly, the supposed "experts" at the top like Seema Verma, President Trump's nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who want Americans to be able to choose which services they pay for, like some kind of dysfunctional insurance buffet.
People are understandably frustrated over high premiums and high deductibles with plans purchased on healthcare.gov, but picking and choosing what you want covered isn't going to solve that. In fact, such "choice" is really code for insurers being able charge you more for all the shit you need, kind of the way nickel-and-diming airlines have started charging for everything they can think of. Let's focus for a minute on why buffet plans are utterly impossible to implement if people want to continue to enjoy the vast perks of the ACA—like being covered for future, unforeseen health problems, and, say, not being discriminated against for having certain conditions or for being a woman.
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