Hey what do you know? The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan and Rep. Keith Ellison actually found something they can agree on -- that the private insurance market is a big complicated mess and we could have made sure everyone had access to health care by just expanding some existing programs instead.
Noonan did not mean to make the case for single-payer, but as Ellison was quick to point out, that's exactly what she did during the panel segment on This Week:
STEPHANOPOULOS: And Peggy Noonan, one of the things you do see, even more Republican governs signing up accepting the program especially on Medicaid. We just saw Michigan signing up on top of Ohio and New Jersey, some big states there.
NOONAN: Yes. And lots of people will be making decisions based on money and the agreement they can get with the federal government.
But let me say something so old-fashioned, I always thought one of the central mistakes here was obsessing on the issue of insurance and not obsessing on the issue of health care and making sure everybody who gets into an accident, who has some trouble, who doesn't have money, can get treated in America.
It seems to me, we had some programs that could be deepened, broadened, made good, made better.
And insurance is complicated. And we are seeing in this whole website thing and in everything that follows, you can't control that market. It's a big, complicated, nutty, messy market. We shouldn't have government even have gone in there.
ELLISON: Peggy Noonan, I agree with you. I (inaudible)
(CROSSTALK)
NOONAN: Happy Thanksgiving to you fellows.
ELLISON: I'm going to tell you right now, I would support Medicare for all. I was ecstatic when we proposed Medicare go down (inaudible).
But, you know, here's the problem. And you've got to deal with the system that you have. And there was so much fear, resistance, anxiety around moving to what I think would be the real problem, a real solution that people just -- we ended up with a tiebreak.
(CROSSTALK)
NOONAN: I think you fell for a bunch of voodoo from business guys.
