After many months of not offering any alternative health care reform plan, the House Republicans have unveiled a proposal for the de facto total deregulation of the health insurance industry.
Rep. John Boehner
If you’re uninsured, this won’t help you.
If you’re insured, but you worry about circumstances beyond your control—a global financial meltdown leading to layoffs at your company, say—this won’t help you.
If you’re insured, but you worry that if you get sick your insurer will gin up some pretext to drop your coverage, this won’t help you.
If you’re insured but your premiums are escalating so fast you worry that you won’t be able to afford to keep paying them, this won’t help you.
Instead, what Rep. John Boehner’s yet-to-be-released bill proposes to do is free health insurance companies from nearly all state regulations– without instituting any federal regulations. In Republican-speak (PDF), this is called “allowing Americans to buy insurance across state lines.” Which is nonsense, because we already can do that.
UPDATE: A copy of the bill (PDF) is now online, and sure enough page 129 makes clear that health insurance policies can be exempted from “all of the consumer protection laws or restrictions on rate changes” in 49 of the 50 states. The insurer can choose a “primary state” (such as Connecticut) with the most permissive insurance laws.
UPDATE: Meanwhile, in the Senate, Republicans have obstructed the extension of unemployment benefits for 26 days. And more than 186,000 unemployed Americans lost their benefits while the GOP stalled.
UPDATE: In the comments, some want to know about actual health care reform that actually has a chance to become law. There’s a Senate bill that probably won’t be sent to the floor for debate until 2010. We’re waiting for the details on the House bill. Meanwhile here’s a simple explanation and a detailed explanation of how reform is supposed to work.
UPDATE: The CBO report on the Republican bill is in, and it says that this bill would actually worsen the health care crisis. From mcjoan on DailyKos:
This really makes them look even worse than they did when they were just obstructing, because it just proves once more that even when they try to legislate, they fail.
#1 by brewski on November 3, 2009 - 8:16 pm
Richard, I look forward to reading your point by point critique of the Dem health care plans, if you can.
#2 by Larry Bergan on November 3, 2009 - 9:46 pm
The two most overused words in the Republican vocabulary are “balanced” and “solutions.”
Two words which sound warm and fuzzy. Where have you seen these words used before? Just about everywhere!
This is a party with no ideas other then to make fools of us with their compliant media and simple repetition.
Lies.
#3 by Uncle Rico on November 3, 2009 - 11:17 pm
“Republican solutions.” Isn’t that a bit like “jumbo shrimp?”
#4 by Larry Bergan on November 4, 2009 - 12:16 am
Or for that matter:
Republican solutions.
#5 by Larry Bergan on November 4, 2009 - 12:22 am
Oops, I just parroted Uncle Rico, but to use an oxymoron to name your bill can’t be emphasized enough IMHO.
#6 by Richard Warnick on November 4, 2009 - 7:25 am
brewski–
If you want right-wing talking points against health care reform, you won’t get them from me.
#7 by brewski on November 4, 2009 - 8:36 am
Richard, are you capable of analyzing any plan or idea? Or do you just shoot holes in the GOP plan and assume the Dem plan must have no faults?
#8 by Richard Warnick on November 4, 2009 - 9:16 am
brewski–
The Republican plan is an epic fail. It would make health insurance worse for everybody. I could list everything that’s wrong with it, but there’s no need because the deregulation is at the heart of the bill. I am not nitpicking or making up lies about “death panels” or “rationing.” The essence of the bill is deregulation of the health insurance industry.
I have previously warned about the dangers of the proposed “trigger option” and the necessity of the public option that was dropped from the Baucus bill. I’ve criticized the Obama administration’s secret deal with Big Pharma. When we see the final House and Senate bills I’ll most likely have some opinions about them.
Check out the One Utah health care category. You’ll read plenty of criticism of the Democrats.
#9 by brewski on November 4, 2009 - 9:33 am
I was looking forward to your analysis that the Dem plan is an epic fail, but I guess I overestimated you. I guess you think not covering 25 million people, taxing medical devices such as insulin pumps and pacemakers, not controlling costs, raising the cost of insurance for those who have insurance by mostly attracting sick people and not well people, relying on dishonest accounting to keep the headline numbers down are all good ideas.
#10 by Richard Warnick on November 4, 2009 - 9:47 am
I’ve said over and over that I want a single-payer plan, Medicare For All or Medicare Part E (for everybody). I’ve declared the Obama secret deal with Big Pharma to be a “deal-breaker” if it’s adhered to. I’ve said the public option is a miserable compromise that will probably not be available to most of us.
If the final version of the health care reform legislation, like the GOP bill, turns out to be worse than doing nothing I will declare it an epic fail.