Memo to Rove: Facts Don't Vote

Karl Rove delves into what the "Adjusted Community Rating" provision of ObamaCare is, and what it will mean for young people who want health insurance over the next couple of years.

The adjusted community rating forbids anyone from being charged a premium more than three times anyone else's. This ratio is called an "age rating band." Before ObamaCare, 42 states allowed "age rating bands" of 5:1 or more.

This accounts for much of the sticker shock this Administration has been doling out during this first year of ObamaCare. (It's interesting to me that Rove doesn't discover or report what the young could be paying were states not already butting into the financial transactions of consenting adults to begin with.) It also portends even worse rate hikes as young people understandably choose not to enroll:

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Americans age 18-34 make up 40% of the potential enrollees for the exchanges. If they decide ObamaCare is a bad deal, then they could make up less than 40% of its enrollees. That could be a disaster for ObamaCare as insurers pay out more this year than what they collect in the premiums, then raise premiums for 2015 to make up for losses. Kaiser predicts that may happen if young Americans comprise one-third of the program's enrollees, which just might be happening.

Rove predicts disaster for the President. I appreciate his analysis of this provision, but cannot share his optimism. Rove appears, at best, to be either unaware of or tone-deaf to the power of philosophy to overcome practical considerations for even intelligent and well-educated voters. Until the rest of the GOP understands this about him (and that about voters), it will continue to fail to offer a real alternative to Obama and his ilk, and it will continue losing political ground in the long haul.

Horse-whipping someone won't cause him to start acting like a free man if he believes he deserves the whipping or thinks in some way that freedom is wrong. Catering to such people will not make them pro-freedom voters nor will it inspire confidence among those who want to be. Facts are necessary -- but not sufficient -- to make a case for freedom.

-- CAV