GOP Set to Propose Its Own Health Bill [No Taxes, No Mandate, Malpractice Reform]

WASHINGTON -- Republicans are preparing an alternative health-care bill to Democratic legislation, House Republican Leader John Boehner said, marking a shift in strategy as the full House is set to begin debate on the issue this week.

Mr. Boehner said Sunday the Republican bill would extend health-insurance coverage to "millions" of Americans but wouldn't try to match the scope of the House Democratic bill unveiled last week. The Democratic legislation, if passed, is estimated to expand coverage to more than 30 million Americans now without insurance. Its estimated gross cost is $1.055 trillion over 10 years.

"What we do is we try to make the current system work better," Mr. Boehner, of Ohio, said on CNN's "State of the Nation." He said the GOP bill would be less costly to taxpayers and involve less government intrusion into the health-care sector, instead taking "a step-by-step approach" to expanding coverage.

It would, among other things, propose new limits on medical malpractice lawsuits and make it easier for individuals and small businesses to pool resources to purchase insurance.

Mr. Boehner said the Republican bill would also include a proposal to provide grants to states that use "innovative" solutions to expand insurance. He pointed to states that have created special "high-risk pools" to provide insurance coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions

He said the bill wouldn't raise taxes, nor mandate that individuals and businesses purchase insurance, as the Democratic legislation does.

For months, Republicans have attacked the Democratic health plan, hammering at pieces of the bill -- such as a proposed government-run health plan -- and helping to stir public doubt over the initiative.

By unveiling their own legislation, Republicans will be able to coalesce around a concrete plan.

He is quite the idiot. What about allowing purchase of health insurance across statelines? How bout expanding the use of medical savings accounts and catastrophic health insurance (which is banned in NY)? How bout upping co-pays and decreasing premiums?

Really, what difference does it make? Anything the GOP proposes is DOA. Like I said, this is pro forma, nothing more.

Under the circumstances, you can't hold Boehner and the GOP responsible for any healthcare plan -- other than voting unanimously to defeat Pelosi's.

There’s no doubt there are ways to improve healthcare including tort reformand interstate healthcare choices to improve competition along with chosing what you want in your policy much like auto insurance but what we’ve got is liberals in charge so none of the above will happen anytime soon.

Medicare & Medicaid we’re stuck with for many years much like Social Security... all three are costing billions but it’s a mindset that’s been around far to long. I’m 54 and would give everything I put in to date if I could keep my own money and do what I want with it from here out.

We’ll see what the repubs have to offer but I expect it’s dead on arrival already for the next few years anyway.

I wonder if anyone will propose legislation to allow companies to sell real insurance. A real insurance policy would provide that if a person develops various named conditions while the policy is in effect, the payment of premium up to that point will compel the insurance company to provide specified treatments for those conditions until they are fully resolved, no matter how long that takes; for some conditions, the company would be on the hook for treatment as long as the patient lives.

There would have to be a regulatory framework to define when various conditions will be deemed to originate. Most likely insurers would require customers to purchase insurance well in advance of its effective date in order to get the best rates; customers who want insurance to become effective quickly would have to submit to extensive medical testing and/or pay much higher premiums. (The basic idea here would be that if someone buys a cancer policy that will be effective a year after purchase, and such a person doesn't have obvious cancer when the policy goes into effect, it's unlikely that the person would have been hiding any pre-cancerous symptoms when the policy was purchased).

A system of real insurance would allow purchasers to decide what types of treatment they would demand, and what types they'd be willing to forgo. For example, if an insurer offered two cancer policies for women, one of which would provide for reconstructive surgery following a mastectomy and the other of which would not, women would be free to choose whether they'd rather pay the higher premium of the former plan, or accept the risk that if they got cancer their insurance wouldn't cover reconstructive surgery. Some women would value their image enough that they'd rather pay the higher premium; other women would rather save the money.

I'm not sure what's supposed to really be accomplished by letting employers "pool" their risks if insurance companies are supposed to pay for conditions that have already manifest themselves before the policies were purchased. Such plans are not really insurance, but rather "cost-sharing", with all the market distortions implied thereby. If "insurance" isn't really insurance, there's no real way for people to choose what level of treatment they'll want their insurance to cover for conditions that haven't yet manifested themselves.

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