Republicans Offer Healthcare Plan
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Health Care, RepublicansIt’s still an outline right now, so more details will be coming soon.
Still, we’re going back to the same basic argument of tax credits and increased privitization, which hasn’t worked for the past two decades to curb costs or get everybody insured. So why they think it would be able to do it this time is beyond me.
* “Pools” of insurance – Let states, small businesses and others group together to offer lower-cost health care plans. Such pools would have to offer, at a minimum, any coverage that is provided in a majority of states.* Medicaid transfer – Allow Medicaid users to take the value of their Medicaid benefit and transfer/apply that to a private health care plan instead.
* Boost HSAs – Increase incentives for people, especially those in lower income brackets or over 55, to build up Healthcare Savings Accounts.
* Automatic Insurance – Encourage employers to automatically sign up their workers for health insurance, so that employees would have to “opt out” of coverage if they didn’t want it.
* 55 and over – The bill would provide health insurance tax credits to Americans aged 55 to 64 who fall into low- or modest-income brackets, as part of the general thrust of the plan to help all Americans in that income range.
Republicans have yet to say how much this plan will cost, but there’s no doubt it’ll be less than the Dem alternatives since we’re talking about tax credits and expansion of health savings accounts.
However, I don’t get why Republicans fail to realize that poor people and those living on fixed incomes do not have the money to dedicate to health care costs. So, whether they like it or not, we’ll end up paying for these folks one way or another. Delaying the inevitable will only keep driving the costs up and still not solve the problem of getting everybody insured.
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 and is filed under Health Care, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:04 am
I agree, it’s the same old stuff.
IMO, for better or worse, way MORE people are in favor of some sort of entitlement-based universal coverage. If you lose your job, you get healthcare just like unemployment. When you retire, dole-based coverage is there and decent. All kids are covered. Everyone has access to group rates. Portability issues go away, no more preexisting condition denials if you slip through the wrong crack.
I respect the GOP for sticking to their principles and their guns on this. But this announcement is IMO a fart in church when it comes to public opinion.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Pools, good idea, some small gains. Medicaid transfers, pipe dream — if they’re Medicaid eligible they don’t have money for upgrades unless they quit eating. HSAs, nice if you can afford it. Automatic insurance was standard in the past, only went the other way beause of the cost, is a naked attempt to capture some of the healthy uninsured into the funding pools. 55 & over, those tax credits should be for everyone if it’s such a good idea.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:04 am
kranky kritter Says:
That’s nice, but just because more people are in favor of two plus two equalling five, the math remains the same. The existing entitlement system is unsustainable; heaping yet more entitlement on top of it isn’t even merely bad policy, isn’t even just impractical policy – it’s innumerate.
If our healthcare policy statement is to be “I reject your reality and substitute my own,” let’s go the whole hog and elect Adam Savage as President. At least he wouldn’t be such an insufferable douche as the current one.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Well Simon, to the extent that entitlement means no more than “I get this thing for free and someone else pays for it,” I agree. Wholeheartedly.
And the issue of innumeracy (the math equivalent of illiteracy, to those wondering) is real. And near to my heart as I think you know. Especially when it comes to the federal budget and the demographic trends in social security and medicare.
There is indeed no such thing as a free lunch, so whatever we opt for, we will all pay for. Peter Schiff is essentially correct when he tells us that America needs to produce more and consume less. With all that in my mind, I still think we ought to reform healthcare by de-linking it from employment status, control costs by doing some rationing where we can, and level the cost field by providing a decent menu that everyone can order from.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
This recession has opened a lot of people’s eyes when it comes to how close they are to not having health insurance. Given this, I think there general feeling that something needs to be done for the uninsured. In the end we will have to have some combination of higher taxes, less money to health care providers, and less things covered. What worries me is that Congress will take the easy part (increased coverage) without touching the hard parts (higher taxes, less coverage, etc.).
June 17th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Yup. Be afraid. Then again, our new chinese masters may not allow that approach. :-)
June 17th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Simon Simon Simon
Statements like this one
At least he wouldn’t be such an insufferable douche as the current one.
make you the insufferable douche.
June 17th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Just decouple health insurance from employment, allow citizens to deduct health care costs from taxes (the way employers do now), and have mandates to sign up like Massachusetts. Also, cut corporate income taxes on health care providers.
Alow community clinics to provide basic care (like a sore throat or stomach ache) to walk in appointments for cash, and just have catastrophic, emergency care and chronic or congenital diseases covered by insurance.
Problem solved.
June 17th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
The Word: perhaps, but if so, at least I’m an insufferable douche that can do basic arithmetic, something that apparently puts me ahead of the President.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Insurance doesn’t mean squat if we still allow private insurance companies to determine what kind of treatment we are entitled to. Most people who are insured don’t realize that they can be denied any treatment not deemed within the best interest of the insurance company. Not to mention pre existing conditions and higher co pays and deductables. Most insurance companies don’t even pay for preventative measures and most tests are not even covered. You end up paying a helluva lot for crappy coverage. Even with insurance you can still go bankrupt if you develop a serious illness.
Republican or Democrat plans are worthless if they still allow these corporate idiots to run our health care.
We are better off saving our money and flying to India for surgery and driving to Canada for cheaper drugs and walk in clinics for basic care.
June 17th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
“Insurance doesn’t mean squat if we still allow private insurance companies to determine what kind of treatment we are entitled to. Most people who are insured don’t realize that they can be denied any treatment not deemed within the best interest of the insurance company. Not to mention pre existing conditions and higher co pays and deductables. Most insurance companies don’t even pay for preventative measures and most tests are not even covered. You end up paying a helluva lot for crappy coverage. Even with insurance you can still go bankrupt if you develop a serious illness.”
Wow!
Substitute “insurance” for “Medicare” and/or the “Canadian/Quebec government” and you’ve just described our health care system here. Nice. And what do we do, well we drive down to the States. I guess that particular option will be closed to us in the future. D’ohh!…
June 17th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Simon -
If you had not already shown that you possess a large vocabulary, perhaps you could have gotten away with it. That said, the math part would have more credibility if Reagan and Bush had not wracked up the debt previously. So some of us see it as we will always bitch about what you do and we will not care when we do it. Kind of like the latest Promise Keeper – Wife Cheater. Republicans just have ZERO credibility.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Phin, i’m assuming that you’re canadian from that statement? So you drive down here and what? pay cash for your treatments? That’s irrelevant to this discussion, if people could pay cash, then they would be and not having insurance wouldn’t be a big deal.
This “plan” is no plan, HSAs do jack squat for people who have no coverage, can’t afford coverage, or are denied coverage. Private companies should not be determining what care we can receive. They should not be profiting off of denying people basic health rights.
And simon, stop being a dumbass. You know very well that the pres isn’t a moron, and can do math. Just because you disagree with his policies doesn’t turn him into GW.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:46 am
In any “universal coverage” setup, going elsewhere and paying cash for denied or long-wait treatment is precisely the fallback plan. That, and/or buying supplemental coverage over and above the state-required minimums in order to get served at private clinics.
A Brit facing too long a wait or an uncovered service goes to Spain or even Poland. A Canadian, to the US. Even insured Americans have picked up the habit…google “medical tourism.” Indeed, some US insurance companies will waive co-pays and deductibles for such trips, as long as you waive liability.
June 18th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Donar Says:
Much better to let the government determine what kind of treatment we are entitled to – and what kind of treatment other people will be entitled to on our dime.
# the Word Says:
You mean racked up. And I am not here to defend the previous administration’s drunken sailor spending.
# Chris Says:
If we credit him with being numerate, that entails the conclusion that he understands what his proposals are going to cost. And that, in turn, forces us to decide between to unpleasant conclusions: whether he regards bankrupting the country as an acceptable collateral result of the policy or as an ancillary policy goal. Thus, concluding that he’s simply innumerate is the best way to think the best of him. We aren’t talking policy disagreements, we’re talking math. You can agree or disagree that universal healthcare is a good or bad thing. That’s a policy disagreement. No one can argue that we can afford it. That’s a math thing.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Simon-
Thanks for pointing out the typo.
While you are “not here to defend…” for some of us it makes the whole argument less credible when you would it appears stop every dime going into the Plus column of the balance sheet with the tax cut for every problem mentality and the anything we want to spend money on is affordable (even if it means keeping it off books like the Iraq war) and we will never see any spending on the citizens of the US as affordable or desirable mentality. Both sides have different positions to be sure but the fact that we are losing jobs (many of them because of the no solution to the health care cost mentality) at some point will mean that those sucking the marrow out of the economy at the top will at some point have nothing left to suck.
The numbers I heard the other day for bankruptcies is that the majority come from medical expenses and the majority of those came from people who had some kind of insurance. You can say let them all die. You can say let them go bankrupt. You can say tough. The fact is that some of us see the fact that throughout our lives you can go into a gas station or convenience store and see a jar asking for change to save someone’s life in the “richest most advanced country on the planet” as a national embarrassment.
So in the end, Do you find that acceptable or desirable? Could we do anything better? Should we address it in some way? Or should we just say, as long as I’ve got mine (perhaps a perception rather than a reality) screw everybody else?
June 18th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
The US has an excellent socialized medical program which has held down costs and provides some of the best care anywhere. It is called the Toyota of health care and was awarded by Harvard for the best government program today. The VA.
http://politicalpragmatist.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=313
For those who refuse to accept reality, this is what we can do if we stop listening to those who are being paid to screw us.
June 18th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Simon, we’re going to be bankrupt as a country anyway, through inaction. Might as well try to fix it.
June 18th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
[...] suppose). We’ve had the Republicans try to dress up the same old nonsense in new clothes with no details and call it “reform”. We’ve been reading about how insurance companies actively [...]
June 19th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Simon “The Word: perhaps, but if so, at least I’m an insufferable douche that can do basic arithmetic, something that apparently puts me ahead of the President.”
I would be interested in an educational comparison between Simon and Obama. Simon may be right. Simon?
If you’re going to claim to be smarter than someone, the argument has legs if you can back it up.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:07 pm
[...] system, ushering in a new level of government involvement. In response, the irrelevant Republicans offered their own plan to overhaul healthcare, apparently just so they could hear themselves talk, since no one else [...]