Well, guess what? Speaker Pelosi wants the House to vote on her version of ObamaKennedyDeathCare this Saturday, just eight days after the 2,000-page bill was unveiled. I'm certain that every member of the House has been diligently reading, and has now fully comprehended every provision in there, aren't you?
The question is, of course, whether or not she'll be able to hold together her own fracturing party. Given the major losses in key states earlier this week, many moderate Democrats and Dems in red-leaning districts are probably going to be more reluctant than ever to walk this plank. However, she knows that the longer this things drags out, the less support she'll have to get it rammed down our throats. Remember, the Dems initially wanted this thing passed into law by early summer. We'll see how it plays out.
Despite the best efforts of the media to the contrary, the GOP has put together a perfectly viable alternative plan that would increase the freedom of American citizens to get the health care coverage that best meets their individual needs. The CBO has now scored the GOP bill, and it's an astoundingly small number:
Their plan, which relies on interstate competition, HSAs, and tort reform, would only cost $61 billion in the first ten years of the plan — or slightly less than 6% of what Democrats plan to spend to overhaul the entire system:
This evening, CBO released a preliminary analysis of a substitute amendment to H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, proposed by Representative John Boehner, the Republican Leader in the House of Representatives. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that the amendment would reduce federal deficits by $68 billion over the 2010-2019 period; it would also slightly reduce federal budget deficits in the following decade, relative to those projected under current law, with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between zero and one-quarter percent of gross domestic product.Unlike the Democratic proposals, the bill would actually reduce premiums:
CBO anticipates that the combination of provisions in the amendment would reduce average private health insurance premiums per enrollee in the United States, relative to what they would be under current law-by 7 percent to 10 percent in the small group market, by 5 percent to 8 percent for individually purchased insurance, and by zero to 3 percent in the large group market.
Wow - this plan would increase freedom for American citizens, lower premium costs, enact tort reform, and improve quality and accessibility through increased competition...for a tiny fraction of the cost of the Democrat plan! Sounds like a winner to me.
It's not all wine and roses, however, even from the Right:
There are some elements of it that are good, including allowing Americans to purchase insurance across state lines, giving businesses more flexibility to offer financial incentives aimed at encouraging people to be healthier, and expanding health savings accounts. But there are also plenty of new mandates imposed by the bill, including barring insurers from having annual or lifetime spending limits and a "slacker mandate" that would make insurers allow adults to stay on their parents insurance until age 25.
But more importantly, the bill doesn't do anything to move us beyond the employer-based health care system, a system in which the tax code discriminates against individuals purchasing insurance on their own, workers are locked into whatever insurance policies their employers choose for them, and they cannot take their insurance with them when they move from job to job. The GOP proposal isn't what I would consider real reform. It's more of a document that Republicans have put out so they can say they have some sort of health care bill that reduces premiums at a fraction of the cost of the Democrats' bill.
Also disturbing to me is that the one page summary of the bill has a chart titled, "Scorecard: Speaker Pelosi's Government Takeover vs. GOP Common-Sense Solution" in which the GOP boasts that while Pelosi's bill cuts Medicare by $500 billion, the Republican alternative has $0 of Medicare cuts. This is what we've come to -- a Republican Party that talks a big game about standing up for small government while openly touting the fact that their health care proposal does not touch the health care entitlement program that is bankrupting our country.
Those are some good points, and I've come to respect Philip Klein's opinion a great deal over the past few months. Still, when compared to the Dem bill, it's a no-brainer.
Speaking of which, the Pelosi plan will kill federalism in health care. Heritage explains:
Health care is too complex and intricate to micromanage at the federal level. The best, and most constitutional, way to enact reform would be to set the framework for change at the federal level and then allow decision-making and implementation to be determined by the states. This is in accordance with the federalism employed by the founding fathers in molding our nation into a democratic republic. The founders recognized the limits inherent in political power, thus specifically limited the power given to the federal government by the Constitution. As former Congressman Thomas Feeney writes in a recent paper:
The national government, under the Constitution, is responsible for the general concerns of the republic; the state governments are the custodians of the people’s trusts and are authorized to address their particular concerns. This is the essence of federalism.An example of federalism at its best is the health care reform currently being implemented in Utah. Utah is launching a new health exchange operated by just two state officials, adding little to no cost to the taxpayer. The exchange is accompanied by a defined-contribution system, which allows employers to make contributions to their employers’ choice of one out of 66 plans in the exchange. Couples can combine their employers’ contributions, and since plans purchased in the exchange qualify as employer-sponsored benefits, participants are protected from discrimination based on pre-existing conditions. Lastly, independent risk-adjustment prevents insurers from cherry-picking healthy individuals. These and more changes to come will increase accessibility, portability, and affordability of health care in Utah.
Utah’s efforts prove that states can get health care reform right if the federal government simply gets out of the way. Conversely, Democrats’ tactics would amount to a Washington takeover of health care, and would, as Feeney writes:
…trample on the traditional preeminence that the states, under current law and the Constitution, have long held in enacting and improving the regulation of their very different health insurance markets.Washington lawmakers should make changes at the federal level that make it easy for other states to follow Utah’s lead, allowing states to tailor reform to their specific needs and to learn from each others’ failures and successes, thereby determining the most effective means of reform.
These issues are the precise reason that the Founders set things up the way they did, and to centralize these decisions is to destroy the foundations of the country.
Rasmussen shows us that the American people understand what the public option will do:
Seventy-two percent (72%) of voters nationwide say passage of the proposed health care plan could lead companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their employees. Forty-eight percent (48%) say it's very likely.
The fact that people understand this plan is probably why there is so much overall opposition to it.
The last component of this update is a terrific visual from Heritage:
The key to this chart is the second graph showing the spending “cuts” in the H.R. 3962. Nobody in world believes those cuts will happen. Which is why the true cost of the House health Bill is $1.5 trillion.
If you are so inclined, get on the phone to your Rep, especially if he or she is a Democrat. That's where the fate of ObamaKennedyDeathCare lies.
There's my two cents.
Related Reading:
No comments:
Post a Comment