Posted on 08/19/2015 2:13:11 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Perhaps today will mark the beginning of a new phase in the long campaign for the GOP nomination for president in 2016. That’s possible because two of the leading candidates — Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and Florida senator Marco Rubio — have offered serious plans for replacing Obamacare in its entirety. (In Senator Rubio’s case, he reiterated in an op-ed the principles of a plan he outlined several months ago.) They, along with Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, are now the candidates who can speak most credibly about what’s wrong with Obamacare, because they have actual plans to do something about it.
Governor Walker’s plan is very good because it is both workable as policy and realistic politically. It has five key features:
Retention of Employer Coverage: Walker’s plan would leave in place today’s job-based insurance arrangements. There are 160 million Americans in those plans, and they generally like what they have. They do not want to have their health insurance upended based on an untested promise that they will get better coverage elsewhere under a new, reformed system. Walker is smart to signal to these Americans that his plan would basically leave them alone.
Tax Credits for Households without Access to Employer-Sponsored Insurance: Although most Americans today have access to employer coverage, a sizeable number of households do not have access to such plans, nor did they have access before Obamacare was enacted. Obamacare tried to close gaps in coverage by imposing a costly requirement on employers — the employer mandate — to offer insurance under more circumstances and in conformance with the government’s rules. It also extended expensive “premium credits” for people with lower incomes who purchased insurance in the heavily regulated Obamacare exchanges. Walker’s plan repeals the employer mandate and Obamacare’s premium credits and provides instead a much more flexible system of tax credits that households can use to purchase insurance plans of their choosing. The states, and not the federal government, would regulate these plans, and that means consumers are more likely to find plans that suit their actual needs. The credits would be age-adjusted but would not be reduced based on income, which means middle-class families would benefit from them, too.
RELATED: Walker’s Plan to Replace Obamacare: The Best, to Date, from the 2016 Field
Continuous Coverage Protection: Obamacare tried to take care of people with preexisting conditions by banning adjustments in premiums and coverage based on health status and then forcing everyone to buy government-approved insurance. Instead of coercion, Walker proposes a giant inducement: People who stay continuously insured will be protected from premium hikes or restrictions in coverage based on their health status. And there would be no reason for any American to not stay continuously covered, because they would either have access to an employer plan or receive a tax credit for insurance.
Expansion of Health Savings Accounts: Walker’s plan would give anyone who signs up for a Health Savings Account (HSA) a $1,000, one-time refundable tax credit and would increase the amount an individual can deposit into an HSA annually. Most taxpaying households without an HSA today would establish an account to get the tax credit, providing a significant boost to more consumer-directed health care.
Medicaid Reform: The plan would divide Medicaid into two programs, one serving the disabled and the elderly, and another providing subsidies for health insurance for able-bodied adults and their children with low incomes. The states would be given substantial new flexibility to run both parts of Medicaid, but the part devoted to the non-disabled and non-elderly would be converted into capped federal allotments to the states. States would have strong incentives to manage these fixed resources judiciously.
Senator Rubio’s plan is similar to the Walker plan. That’s not surprising because both candidates want to replace Obamacare with a plan built on decentralized, market-driven reforms. The Rubio plan would also provide a refundable tax credit for health insurance and would shift regulatory authority from the federal government to the states.
But the Rubio plan differs from Walker’s approach in certain ways as well. It would gradually phase out (over ten years) the tax preference for employer-paid health-insurance premiums in favor of a universal tax credit that would be made available to all Americans, whether or not they have access to a job-based option. This approach is “fair” in the sense that it would ensure that all Americans were treated identically in terms of the tax treatment of health insurance. However, it is more vulnerable to political attack than the Walker approach because it would create some uncertainty about the continued viability of existing employer plans. For that reason, it seems likely that the Walker approach to tax credits would hold up better over time, especially when the inevitable attacks come from Obamacare’s defenders.
The Rubio plan would also help people who have expensive preexisting conditions by giving them direct government subsidies instead of limiting what insurers can charge to people with continuous coverage. On this issue, too, Walker’s approach might be more attractive to voters because it does not depend on continued appropriations for high-risk pools, which have been chronically underfunded in the past.
To Rubio’s credit, his plan includes reform of the Medicare program for future program entrants, relying on the same principles of consumer choice and competition that inform the rest of his plan. Walker’s plan leaves aside Medicare for consideration in a separate proposal.
These differences are important but shouldn’t be overemphasized. Both plans are clearly informed by the same general perspective, which is that health care in the United States will be better, of higher quality, and less costly if decisions over the allocation of scarce resources are moved from the federal government to consumers, employers, and the states.
The early stage of the 2016 presidential race has been characterized by a relative absence of actual debate over policy proposals. That’s understandable, as actual voting is still months away and the campaigns are being pulled in a million directions at once.
But one sure way for a candidate to make a good impression is by articulating a plan of action on an important matter and then defending that plan on the campaign trail. After all, that’s basically the job description of president.
For that reason alone, here’s hoping that what Walker, Rubio, and Jindal have done on health care will catch on and that, in the coming months, the candidates will compete vigorously over who has the best plan of action, on health care and other matters, for turning the country around.
— James C. Capretta is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Walker and Amnesty pimp Rubio eh? MSM making prophecies they hope to fulfill. Gotta try in vain to get immigration off the telly.
Ted Cruz previews new plan to repeal and replace Obamacare (2013)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3091666/posts
After the GOP wave, Ted Cruz’s Obamacare plan (2014)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3224960/posts
Cruz Lays Out His Obamacare Replacement Plan [Video] (March of 2015)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3273033/posts
There’s the proof right there it’s MSM trying to change the narrative.
What a croc that is... Being against Obamacare is like being against violent RAPE.. which it is... on various levels..
Who isn’t against violent Rape.?.. DOH.. Well you do have yer democrats.
Are they against Murder TOO?.....
Being against 80% of the federal givernment is a START..
THEN... you go on from there..
But I guess I have to strike all three from my list.
I do not accept the premis that ObamaCare must have a replacement. As a matter of fact I reject the entire concept of a replacement for ObamaCare.
A simple repeal is all that is necessary or desirable. A bill to dissolve state impediments to cross border sale of healthcare insurance should help reduce if not reverse the inflation of healthcare cost. Competition in most cases causes prices to fall.
George Will lmao
“I do not accept the premise that ObamaCare must have a replacement.”
Exactly! Rubio has had the opportunity to stand tall with Sen. Lee and Sen. Cruz to halt the madness. He went AWOL.
Oldplayer
I know exactly what I want to replace Obamacare with: freedom.
Ted Cruz has been on top of this for a long while.
1) Americans don't save now. How are you going to layer one more thing on that they can't afford to save for?
2) the main incentive of MSAs is a tax break . . . On the savings. But many Americans don't pay taxes.
MSAs would work with a thriving middle class with enough excess cash to save, but until that point, this program is not going to appeal to anyone but a policy wonk.
Cruz listened, took it in and perhaps had not considered that aspect before. Anyway, the only big difference in any of the "R&R" plans, including Trump's is language: most use the term "portability" while Trump uses the plainer language "take your insurance across state lines."
Personally, I think we're stuck with Obamacare at this point, whether Cruz, Trump, or anyone else is Pres. There is no way to go back and reinstall policies now gone for four years. ALL those vacated policies, even if government forced insurance companies to review them, would now turn up with "previous conditions." And any "R&R" program that forces insurance companies to cover previous conditions will only bankrupt the companies and send us to single payer even faster.
It's a disaster no matter what "R&R" program you pick, and short of SIMPLY REPEAL which is something not one candidate, including Cruz or Trump supports, we are stuck with it.
Where was Rubio, when Ted Cruz was trying to defund this thing?
“Walker, Rubio, and Jindal Lead the Way on Replacing Obamacare”
Not sure what this has to do with the 2016 election. Perhaps 2032, after Trump and Cruz serve out their terms?
I’ll firmly stand with those posters who say “nuts” to any kind of replacement. Get the government and the insurance companies the H out of my healthcare.
Short story;
I needed an operation to repair a hernia. Went to the hospital to get a predetermination of costs because I waned to pay cash. With the surgeon, facility fee and anesthesiologist, with Insurance it was about $50,000. Paying cash it would have been $15,000.
Still not satisfied, I looked into the private surgical centers. The surgeon was from the same group as the hospital surgeon and the whole thing cost me $4200.
What I suspect is happening, is that the insurance companies are paying or at least negotiating with the hospitals. Now consider that everyone who is paying insurance is actually paying the rate for the bloated prices. That alone is the cause of the high insurance rates and the government cronies and lobbyists are hell bent to keep it that way. They base their rates on the Medicare Codes from the government. The insured are paying at that rate. The insurance companies and hospitals negotiate that down over time.
So in essence, the insured are being charged for coverage based on the insured cost according to the Medicare Codes. That is how the insurance companies estimate their rates for the insured. Then comes the time for the procedure and the hospital bills the insurance company. They negotiate that down to somewhere near the cash price. The real price is somewhere near that price I paid for the private center.
With that is why I say get them all out of it and return it entirely to the free market. With the capabilities of people to communicate instantly all over the world, bad apples and good ones will be very apparent so the bad ones will be exposed rapidly.
As for Rubio. He lied to us from his heart, straight to our faces. If he were the nominee, I would abstain and vote present.
National Review RINO tendencies PING! Seriously, how does an adult have a conversation about Obama Care without including Ted Cruz.
".... Americans have been thirsting for a well-conceived conservative alternative to Obamacare for six years. Finally a leading Republican has offered one. Obama’s centerpiece legislation is now on a course toward repeal — which would probably be the biggest loss ever for progressives and the biggest domestic-policy win in the history of the conservative movement."
Walker shakes up GOP field with plan to replace ObamaCare
".....Yuval Levin, a National Review columnist who specializes in healthcare, praised Walker’s plan. He argued it creates through its tax credits a baseline of minimal catastrophic coverage and then allows for a market for more coverage if people want it. He said that contrasts with ObamaCare, which creates bloated plans with high out-of-pocket costs by requiring them to cover a wide range of benefits.
“I think it’s the most substantively and politically serious conservative health care reform we have yet seen from a presidential candidate, and hopefully it will spur some more to come,” Levin wrote."
They’re just looking for a shady spot in the candidates parking lot.
With all do respect, I am not impressed...
It should be an Adjustment to Gross Income LINE 29 on the 1040, just like a small business person does 100% reduction in your income if you purchase the policy on your own if you have no access to an employer plan and your not self employed, and THEN the playing field would be equal..
And to top it off, no mention of using either HSA contributions or FSA contributions for Direct Primary Care plans which is the answer to thwarting Obamacare, and you can't use those pre-tax dollars now to pay for Direct Primary Care, this is needed and it would take Congress to do it, but IMHO Obama wouldn't sign onto it, we need a change of leadership @ 1600 Penn to make it a reality.
Rubio is so desperate to appear Conservative...
Touting his pro-life stance at the debates...now repealing ObamaCare..
But he cant get rid of the stench of AMNESTY...
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