House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has unveiled the ObamaCare alternative that Republicans are preparing to vote on it in the House of Representatives. There have been Republican alternatives to ObamaCare around for some time, but this is the first time House Republicans have coalesced behind a single proposal they are prepared to vote on.
It's a good plan too. Here are the four key elements of it:
High-risk pools. One of the major selling points of ObamaCare was that people with pre-existing conditions would now be able to get insurance. That is a good goal, but the way ObamaCare does it is to throw these high-risk folks into the same insurance pool as everyone else - which forces up everyone's costs and prompts the government to mandate people buy the product even though it is overpriced. The Republican idea would separate the high-risk pool from the rest of the insurance pool so everyone isn't forced to deal with higher costs and cancelled policies because of the needs of the high-risk population. That makes much more sense.
Allowing insurance to be purchased across state lines, creating competition, not just intrastate but interstate. Did you know this is not currently allowed under federal law? When you allow insurance sold across state lines, you can have insurance companies from all over the country competing in all 50 states. What do you think that would do to premium costs? Compare it to what ObamaCare has done to premiums.
Medical liability reform. This will put constraints on runaway medical liability claims, which matters a lot because many doctors are practicing defensive medicine in order to avoid exposure to some very expensive malpractice suit. They also face very high costs for malpractice insurance, and that gets passed on to you. No one is suggesting patients should lose the right to sue for genuine malpractice, but the current laws have encouraged such litigation to get completely out of control - and that adds to the cost of health care in several ways.
Expanded Health Savings Accounts. These were expanded under the Bush Administration, but liberals don't like them because they allow people to be too self-sufficient when it comes to their health care needs. An HSA allows you to save pre-tax income to spend directly on your own health care, and when coupled with a high-deductible insurance policy they represent a great way to take control of your own health care purchasing decisions. So as you might imagine, ObamaCare reduced the amount people are allowed to put aside in HSAs. The new Republican alternative would expand it again.
This is just a thumbnail sketch of the proposal. We'll be discussing it more as it rolls out. And needless to say, I understand Harry Reid will never let it come to a vote in the Senate, and Obama would never sign it into law. That doesn't mean Republicans shouldn't introduce it. ObamaCare is a disaster, and that needs to be said whether you come with a better idea or not.
But better ideas are good, and now we've got one that Republicans seem ready to unite behind. Let Obama, Reid and Pelosi justify why the monster they shoved down the nation's throats is better than this.
