Posted on 11/14/2013 6:36:05 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Writing at RedState, Erick Erickson argues that, in championing the Upton billwhich would make millions of Americans health-insurance plans legal again for the next year Republicans are walking into a trap. He writes that the bill, proposed by Representative Fred Upton (R., Mich.), does not have anything in it that can force insurance companies . . . to keep insurance plans going. Meanwhile, Senator Mary Landrieus bill, which, Erickson writes, the Democrats love . . . mandates [that] insurance companies have to keep people on their present insurance. He then predicts the following result:
The House, with the help of a good number of Democrats, will pass the Upton plan and send it to the Senate. Harry Reid will substitute the Landrieu plan and send it back to the House. The House will be forced to either vote for the Landrieu plan or be characterized as siding with insurance companies against people.
In one fell swoop, the Democrats will have the GOP on record saving Mary Landrieus re-election in Louisiana by casting her as the one who saved Americans health care plans, and also getting on record as really being in favor of fixing Obamacare with the use of mandates.
In truth, Obamacare is not fixable. The only solution is to fully repeal it. The Republicans should not be helping Democrats with their re-election plans, which is all the are doing with Upton/Landrieu.
Erickson is certainly right that Obamacare is not fixable, that Republican shouldnt be trying to fix it in any event, and that the only real solution to Obamare is to repeal it (which cant happen until President Obama has a complete ideological or psychological conversion, about 40 percent of Senate Democrats jump ship, or we hit January 20, 2017 whichever comes first). Hes also right that the Upton bill wont bring back to life all of the plans that Obamacare has already killed off with its coercive mandates. But hes wrong that its a trap. Or, rather, hes wrong that its a trap for Republicans.
The Upton bill helps put Obamas oft-repeated you can keep it lie even more front-and-center. More important, it puts red-state and swing-state Senate Democrats in the position where they have to decide between defying Obama on his centerpiece legislation or else saying that they dont think their constituents who like their plans should be able to keep their plans. In short, it puts them in an impossible place and helps solidify their status as sitting ducks a year from now.
Moreover and important the Upton bill would not help fix Obamacare. To the contrary, if it were to become law, it would badly undermine Obamacares exchanges, which would then be drained of millions of (previously insured and hence generally healthier) people whom Obama wanted to compel to buy exchange-based plans by banning their preferred plans. In short, Upton would hurt Obamacare, not fix it which is why Obama opposes it.
As for Landrieus bill, if Republicans cant successfully argue that Congress has no constitutional power to compel commerce (the basic point of the successful in that vein challenge to Obamacare under the Commerce Clause), if they cant argue that Congress has no power to compel anyone to sell an insurance plan, or, by extension, to compel a doctor to see a patient, etc., then were in sad shape.
Obamacare made millions of peoples plans illegal. By passing the Upton bill, House Republicans would be striving to make them legal again for the next year. If insurers nevertheless choose to stop offering those plans, it will still be Obamacare that set that trend in motion. Whats more, the GOP would then be free to criticize those insurers and remind voters that, over the next decade, Obamacare would funnel a stunning $1 trillion from American taxpayers, via Washington, to insurers (according to the Congressional Budget Office). Meanwhile, Landrieus bill is more of the heavy-handed, coercive model of government that gave us Obamacare to begin with, and Republicans should say so.
Finally, Landrieus bill would undermine the Obamacare exchanges at least as much as Uptons bill would. So the Democrats certainly dont love it, and its highly unlikely they would ever pass it. But if they did, and if the House and Senate ended up reconciling Upton and Landrieu in conference, the clear loser would be Obamacare whose exchange population would just have gotten older, sicker, and costlier.
And then around October 2014, all of those notices about losing your health plan because of Obamacare would start being mailed out again, just in time to help voters make an informed choice on November 4.
House Republican should pass the Upton bill and let Senate Democrats decide what to do with it. The range of bad options facing the party of Obamacare will further illustrate that, just because they like their government takeover of health care, they cant necessarily keep their government takeover of health care.
Jeffrey H. Anderson is executive director of the newly formed 2017 Project, which is working to advance a conservative reform agenda.
Just repeal it.
Any Dems who don’t go along with it will be hung out to dry by their own constituents.
It’s the biggest fiasco of a government program in my lifetime.
Go for the kill now and the beast won’t rise again for decades.
RE: Just repeal it.
Haven’t we tried that over 37 times already?
No Republicans should vote for Upton’s plan that will save the Democrats’ seats in next year’s election. To even consider this qualifies the GOP as the Stupid Party.
If they sit tight, the screams of millions of voters dumped by their employer-provided plans next year will sink ObamaCare for good. The Democrats will vote for complete repeal right before the elections.
\Bump
Great analysis!
I dont know why the talk radio hosts are opposing undermining the mandates in this bill but obviously many are commenting based on what they heard them say.
Bill Kristol is the Board Chair of this new group with Spencer Abraham (MI ping). That gives me pause. The article presents a decent argument for the Upton bill, but is it a trap or is it a good tactic along the way to full REPEAL?
Good too.
I agree, but there is another option.
Demand and attach a virtual stripping of Obamacare to whatever democrats propose. Not just the tame options being regarded, which are fine and should be included, but a virtual replacement of the bill with all of the republican proposals.
Republicans must APPEAR like they are doing everything in there power to SAVE Obamacare while in reality doing nothing.
Also they must trumpet repeal and alternative plans containing such things as interstate health insurance purchases, tort reform, and a few cherry picked positives buried in ACA.
This is optimistic, likely overly so. If he is right, why aren’t GOPers out there making the case right now? Congress can’t compel/force a business to sell something. Just like they can’t force an individual to buy something... Oh, wait!
Republicans (save for a few) are still playing politics and not looking out for what’s best for the nation.
They need to get aggressive about the We Told You So and pushing complete repeal and defunding.
Welcome to the Republican’s latest dilemma: Should Republicans help bail out Democrats on Obamacare by passing a bill that would allow insurance companies to continue offering plans that have been cancelled due to Obamacare rules?
This from the American Thinker:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/11/erickson_vs_anderson_on_the_keep_your_plan_act.html
Both Anderson’s and Erickson’s points may be moot. Unless things change dramatically in the next week or so, Harry Reid will not bring any Obamacare fix to the floor. And it wouldn’t matter anyway because the White House has indicated that the president will veto the measure.
The GOP should thank Bill Clinton. He has put congressional Democrats in an even worse position than they were before he said that Congress should act to make good on Obama’s promise. (He’s also distanced Hillary from the whole mess, thus probably saving her candidacy - for now.) While giving Democrats in congress some political cover to vote for the Keep Your Plan Act, defying a sitting president from your own party has its consequences. House Democratic leaders have indicated that gutting Obamacare - which the Keep Your Plan Act has a good chance of doing - would have fundraising reprecussions next fall.
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Check out their ideas for reforming the nomination process for president: stifle the base.
That was before the dems up for re-election started seeing their poll numbers.
I thought it was every congressman's dream to have the media's attention.
Why does he let Rush Limbaugh and other pundits describe his bill and its consequences for him?
Tort reform
interstate insurance competition
Individual tax deductions for premiums and HSAs.
Healthcare system would be fixed within 2 years, max.
Yes, it is.
Harry Reid will turn the Upton bill into the Landrieu bill. They will go to conference and we’ll get 90% of the Landrieu bill (with many more little hidden “gotchas”, no doubt).
I don’t trust the man who is the major reason my attic storage space is completely filled with light bulbs.
I was about to make the same point. Conservatives: Don't play the progressive's game.
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