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If so, excellent news.

Ryan: Tom Price's 'Empowering Patients First Act' will be the basis for ObamaCare replacement



We've been big fans of H.R. 2300 around here for some time now. Back in 2013 the boss wrote about then-Congressman, now-HHS Secretary Tom Price's proposal to replace ObamaCare, mainly (at the time) to counter the liberal/media notion that Republicans had no ideas for what to do: The basics of the bill are these:
  • It extends tax deductions for health insurance to those who buy as individuals, thus eliminating the perverse incentive that favored employer-purchased insurance.
  • It gives patients true portability by making them the owners of their insurance – not their employers.
  • It gives doctors the real power to make treatment decisions, not insurance companies or the government.
  • It reforms medical liability laws and thus saves money by reducing the practice of defensive medicine.
When President Trump chose Price for HHS, we had high hopes that this would mean the ObamaCare replacement would track somewhat closely with Price's thinking. Our hopes may have been too low. According to an interview Speaker Paul Ryan gave last week to something called Opportunity Lives, the ObamaCare replacement won't merely be similar to Price's plan. It will be Price's plan:
“We’re basically putting into law the Price plan as our replace plan,” Speaker Ryan explained to Opportunity Lives. “It’s very similar to the bill that Tom Price has worked on for so many years, that many conservatives co-sponsored last year. Secretary Price, who previously served as the House Committee on the Budget chairman, represented Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District from 2005 to 2017, introduced his patient-centered alternative to Obamacare prior to President Obama’s signature law passing, and he reintroduced it every subsequent Congress. Empowering Patients First even garnered a Senate companion bill from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Even as the media insist Republicans have no plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, Speaker Ryan’s announcement that the replacement bill would be built upon Secretary Price’s longstanding bill provide insight into the guiding philosophy of a GOP-driven, patient-centered reform package.

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Contrary to breathless media reports insinuating Republicans have lost the political will to repeal and replace Obamacare

Contrary to breathless media reports insinuating Republicans have lost the political will to repeal and replace Obamacare, Speaker Ryan says that House Republicans remain as committed as ever to undoing the law and reforming the system in a way that works for patients. “We’re moving to this next right now in Congress. We’re on track. We’re on our schedule. Our plan was always this spring to take on the repeal and replace of Obamacare, so we haven’t changed a thing,” Speaker Ryan reiterated. “I notice there’s a lot of white noise in the press on this, but we’re as committed as ever before.”
I'm hearing that some of the more conservative Republicans in the House and Senate are balking because of the use of tax credits. They see it is merely a different way for the government to subsidize health insurance. Rand Paul, who is not a conservative at all but a libertarian, has obnoxiously taken to calling it "ObamaCare lite." Now I appreciate Sen. Paul's desire to limit the federal government wherever that's possible, but a guy like that can be a real prick when he insists on applying his absolutist philosophy to a challenge like repealing and replacing ObamaCare. We've talked about this many times before, and there is simply no going back to the pre-ObamaCare status quo (which was really not so good to begin with). As much as Sen. Paul may want to see no role at all for the government in health care (and in an ideal world I would largely agree), there is no way to get from this Point A to that Point Z directly. If he's going to act as a saboteur because he's not getting the perfect solution he wants - and Rand Paul is never satisfied with anything that isn't perfect as he defines it - then screw him.

If the Price plan is the replacement for ObamaCare, that will be very good news indeed for this country

That said, we have always believed that the Price proposal represents a very strong change of direction from ObamaCare. It eliminates the individual mandate and puts an end to the government telling you what type of insurance policy you have to get, while also putting an end to the distortion of the risk pools that sees older and sicker people flood the market while younger, healthier people see no reason to buy high-priced plans that "cover" things they don't want and will probably never need. It remains to be seen what happens in the next few weeks, but if the Price plan is the replacement for ObamaCare, that will be very good news indeed for this country.


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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