Dr. Rep. Repub. John Fleming of Louisiana, has a plan to save health insurance companies: have the government pay premiums for poor people. Andrea Fuller in the NYT tells us that Dr. Fleming is all too aware of the problems of diabetes patients who can’t afford their medicine showing up at emergency rooms with gangrene and sepsis, costing the government tens of thousands. No public option for Dr. Fleming, though, because it wouldn’t pay doctors enough. His brilliant solution?

… [A] tax credit or a tax deduction, measures that would give patients an incentive to “watch the pocketbook.” He says he is even open to an individual mandate that would make health insurance compulsory, much like automobile insurance.

Obviously a tax deduction isn’t going to be enough to buy insurance, and neither will a tax credit because they only benefit people who pay lots of taxes.

There’s only one explanation that can rescue this from being total gibberish. Fleming wants the government to pay the premiums for private insurance by way of a negative tax credit, like the earned income tax credit, and one large enough to enable everyone to pay for private insurance.

He must have Stockholm Syndrome: he desperately wants to serve the people who control his livelihood.