Republicans Show Why They Deserve to be the Minority Party
It’s 230 pages long. The House GOP health plan, that is.
As I’ve said before, the opposition forces inside the Beltway are in total disarray. The only thing that has mattered in the past six months has been grass roots.
Here is the grab bag, disconnected set of ideas the House Republicans are calling their health plan:
- Expand high-risk pools
- Allow association health plans
- Allow insurance sales across state lines
- Malpractice reform
- More employer ability to reward healthy lifestyles
- Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) able to pay insurance premiums
- Prohibition on unjust rescissions or instituting annual or lifetime spending caps
- Dependents can stay on their parents’ insurance through age 25
- $50 billion in “incentive payments” to states that reduce costs or reduce their uninsurance rate
Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Agree totally. This is a pitiful alternative.
I agree with Bret. This is awful.
This is why the Republicans are no longer in control. They had the opportunity to reform the system with patient power, free entprise and other good idea and they punted.
The problem is not just with Republicans. The entire conservative health policy community is all over the map when it comes to solutions. There is no general vision that unites.
There are no conservative solutions to the probems of cost, quality and access to care. So the liberals are stepping into the vacuum left by those on the right.
The closer you get to Washington, DC the worse the situation becomes.
This is not a criticims of this blog however. Goodman, Gorman, Scandlen, Graham —you guys are almosts always right on the mark.
230 pages? And this is the conservative approach?
The bill from the RSC (HR 3400), authored by Rep Price should have been the republican plan (or at least some of it). I wrote the section about requiring insurer transparency as it promotes competition. Please check it out….
An alternate reality:
During World War II, employers were unable to hike their employees’ wages, so firms competed for labor by offering housing as a benefit. The IRS determined that the housing benefit was non-taxable. In 2009, almost all working Americans get housing benefits from their employers. Because they have no right to stay in their homes when they leave their jobs, 47 million Americans are homeless. Small businesses cannot afford the bureacracy required to manage their employees’ housing benefits, so they are dropping coverage. Their employees are bunking with their cousins and friends.
Everybody’s house looks about the same. When a light bulb burns out, you go to an in-network electrical supplier to get a new bulb, for which you pay very little. Instead, the supplier submits a claim to your Housing Maintenance Organization. (If you want a 80-watt buld for an outlet that the HMO believes only needs a 60-watt bulb, you have a right to a second opinion).
Costs are spiralling and quality is uneven. Nobody knows who’s responsible for anything in the “system”. The Republicans put forward their solution:
1) Allow small businesses to form “associations” to better manage the cost of housing benefits.
2) More employer ability to reward employees for keeping their homes sanitary and in good condition.
3) Dependents can stay in their parents’ homes until 25.
4) Incentive payments to states that reduce costs or reduce their homeless rate.
Brilliant, eh?
The Coburn bill is still the best proposal produced by a Republican. That the party won’t endorse it is evidence that Republicans have no interest in real health care reform.
The Washington Post reports (http://bit.ly/s6XVN) that the House Republicans’ health reform proposal would not reduce the amount of people who are uninsured, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released yesterday (http://bit.ly/2b3tn9).
So if the Republicans aren’t going to insure even one additional person, why are they bothering?
Here is Morton Kondracke on the GOP plan. He takes Republicans to task for not stepping up to the plate with the Coburn/Ryan bill. Current proposal is not to be taken seriously. Here is the link: http://bit.ly/1geKuT
[…] some conservatives aren’t too pleased either. John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis titles his post: “Republicans Show Why They […]
In response to John Goodman…
That’s what qualifies as an argument in opposition to the Republican plan? — which the CBO says would lower Americans insurance premiums while costing less than 5% as much in its real first ten years as the Democratic plans would cost in their real first ten years (2013-22 for the House bill, 2014-23 for the Senate)?
In response to John Graham…
You didn’t state the whole “alternate reality.” Now (in that reality) the Democrats are trying to nationalize the whole housing market and provide public housing for all — incrementally, to be sure, but irreversably. Republicans control about 40% of Congress and don’t have control of the White House, and yet some of their members say, “Wait — we have a major reform agenda of our own. Pick ours!”
Other Republicans, actually being cognizant of the political landscape, devote their energies to preventing this alternate reality from becoming an alternate nightmare. They say, “Why nationalize housing when you can just allow people to shop for things related to their home from outside of their home state, cut the waste from excessive real-estate lawsuits, and allow sellers to offer better prices to buyers with better credit?” (none of which can be done in this alternate status quo). They continue: “That would make things noticeably better, not dramatically worse. It wouldn’t fundamentally overhaul the system, but it would improve it and help dissuade others from ruining the system. In stopping that threat, it would leave open the option for further, more ambitious reforms down the line.”
And you’re saying its the latter group of Republicans that lacks “brilliance”?
Nobody mentioned the Coburn alternate reality. But first a correction to the original scenario: everybody’s house does NOT look the same. Older and sicker employees tend to live in much larger, more expensive houses than their younger associates (with various access ramps and lifts and other conveniences), even though the housing benefit is carried on the books as though all houses cost the same.
The Coburn legislation makes housing benefits taxable but gives everyone a new government-paid housing voucher, worth the same amount for everyone. Soon the younger employees begin to notice that their pay stubs are showing an inordinately large amount of taxable income being deducted to pay for their small cottages. So they begin to demand their housing allowance in cash. The new government voucher is more than enough to pay for comfortable housing, so they are able to move into more expensive luxury neighborhoods while still banking part of the voucher, and pocketing much of the employer’s housing allowance.
For the older employees, the housing allowance is not nearly enough to cover the actual cost of their large estates, so the company eventually evicts the remaining employees and sells off all of its employee housing, forcing everyone to accept their housing allowance as taxable income. The older employees try to find senior housing adequate to their needs, but find that even when combining the added income with the tax credit, there is still not enough to pay for comparable housing. They are forced to make up the difference on their own, or else move into substandard housing or bunk with friends or relatives.
Cheer up. We can always vote Libertarian.
A Nov. 9 article in Roll Call suggests a reason why House Republicans did not have a single comprehensive alternative to the Democrats’ health care bill: a lack of leadership. (http://www.rollcall.com/issues/55_54/news/40383-1.html) Of course, when they had a leader (The Hammer, Tom DeLay) they weren’t too happy about that, either.
[…] Beyond that, where do conservatives stand on the critical problems of controlling costs, increasing quality, improving access to care and reforming insurance markets? Answer: they’re all over the place. In fact, there is probably no other public policy area on which there is so much diversity of right-of-center opinion than there is right now on health policy. This may explain why the current House Republican plan is so anemic. […]
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Midland must offer affordable and crteaive housing opportunities to support changing demographics and changing employment opportunities.It is expected that within the next 25 years the proportion of seniors in Canada could nearly double. As baby-boomers, people born between 1946 and 1965, are between 45 and 64 years of age, there is a greater number of workers approaching retirement than ever before. The increase in the number of people close to retirement will have considerable effects on the labour force. As baby-boomers age, the growth of the elderly population will accelerate and within a decade it is expected that seniors will outnumber children under 15, leading to more people leaving the workforce than entering it. -Ontario Trillium Foundation 2011We need to focus on the opportunity these groups represents to our community. Baby boomers and active seniors are and can be huge contributers to Midlands growth and success. At the same time, we must address Midland’s ability to attract and retain young adults.I believe we need to marry the two and brand Midland as a vibrant, healthy and exciting community that offers affordable and crteaive housing opportunities that reflect the inevitable changing times and demographics. Our Official Town Plan needs to exude a vision and understanding of this rapidly approaching reality and put in place the necessary zoning bylaws, services and alike that supports a community of active aging parents living with (but separate space from )their adult children. Housing is getting expensive for these groups for obvious reason 1. fixed incomes for retirees and 2. Losing our youth to other municipalities and cities as they seek higher wages to accommodate a better lifestyle.Creative housing solutions could include revisiting permit costs making them more affordable and attractive for this co-op crteaive home. Revisiting zoning bylaws or introducing new ones that support this type of residential dwelling. Self sufficient residential studios or one bedroom apartments over detached garages should be allowed. We should provide building incentives and rebates, not higher taxes and levies. Local banks need to be educated on possible new zoning characteristics and offer mortgage products that take, one title owner, yet duel family income into consideration. Maybe the town itself should be partnering with land owners in developing co-op parent/young adult (live, play,work) housing neighbourhoods? Or at least tender some development ideas out to developers that reflect this initiative.