Posted on 09/18/2013 10:34:10 PM PDT by neverdem
The GOP is introducing a plan that would replace the health-care law they hope to defund.
As polls highlight the American public’s unease about President Obama’s signature health-care law, House Republicans on Wednesday introduced legislation to repeal and replace it completely with a plan of their own.
The bill, called the American Health Care Reform Act, is the product of a health-care working group convened by Representative Steve Scalise (R., La.), chairman of the 175-member Republican Study Committee (RSC).
“I think we’ve done a very effective job of pointing out all the things that are bad about the president’s health-care law, but people want to know what we stand for as well,” Scalise told reporters during a briefing at the National Review office on Capitol Hill. “The public, as they get more angry about the existing law, they are going to want to have something else to put in its place.”
The group, which had been working on the plan for several months, included several members of the Republican Doctors Caucus, including Representatives Phil Roe (Tenn.), Renee Ellmers (N.C.), John Fleming (La.), and Paul Gosar (Ariz.).
“We were all saying we needed to have an alternative and put it on paper, to allow people to compare and contrast,” Gosar tells me. “We have the expertise — those of us in the doctor’s caucus who have actually provided health care. These are real solutions based on years and years in the trenches.”
Democrats have routinely criticized Republicans for attacking Obamacare without proposing a viable replacement. The president repeated this argument on Monday during his address immediately following the deadly shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. “Remember, initially this was like repeal-and-replace, and the replace thing has kind of gone off to the wayside. Now it’s just repeal.”
In fact, Representative Tom Price (R., Ga.), an orthopedic surgeon and former RSC chairman, has proposed a comprehensive replacement bill for three years running. And now, Scalise and company plan to push for a full debate and vote on their legislation. They’ll even seek input from Democrats. “You can’t pass a bill that’s entirely done by one party that affects every person in the country,” Roe said. “We’re open to Democratic ideas and amendments. We can’t just shut out an entire party.”
The RSC’s legislation is similar to Price’s proposal, and contains many ideas that conservatives will find familiar. At less than 200 pages in length, it is considerably more digestible than Obamacare, a 2,700-page piece of legislation that’s now become a 7-foot-3-inch tower of red tape. “The American people want smaller bills that they understand,” Gosar says. “The more complex you get, the harder it is to define. You paint yourself into a corner, where the government is dictating everything.”
The American Health Care Reform Act would repeal Obamacare in its entirety, in order to “start with a clean slate,” Scalise said, but would strive to achieve similar goals — more affordable health care and increased access — and do so without mandates or tax increases.
The bill aims to create a more competitive market for health insurance by letting people purchase plans across state lines and allowing small businesses to pool together to negotiate lower rates. It would also amend existing law to increase transparency in payments and pricing so patients would have a better understanding of the cost of care and ultimately become more discerning consumers. “The American people are the best consumers in the world,” Roe said. “We will drive across five lanes of interstate to get gas two cents a gallon cheaper, so don’t tell me you won’t get the same thing [in health care].”
The plan seeks to “level the playing field” between consumers who receive insurance from an employer and those who purchase insurance on the individual market. The latter group would receive significant tax breaks to offset the cost of buying insurance: Individuals would be able to claim a $7,500 deduction against their income and payroll taxes for qualifying health plans, while families would be able to deduct $20,000. The legislation would also expand access to portable health savings accounts, and increase the maximum allowable contribution to such accounts.
The bill would increase federal funding for state high-risk pools, which insure people with especially expensive and preexisting conditions, by $25 billion over ten years, and would cap premiums in those pools at 200 percent of the average premium in a given state. It would also guarantee that individuals with preexisting conditions could move between insurance plans while maintaining coverage in the interim.
Medical liability law would be reformed to cap awards on punitive damages, as well as attorneys’ fees, in an effort to limit the common (and increasingly expensive) practice of “defensive medicine.” Federal funding for abortion coverage would be explicitly prohibited except in cases of rape, incest, and risks to the life of the mother.
The bill is being introduced as Republicans on Capitol Hill appear to have coalesced around a plan to tie a government-funding resolution to a permanent defunding of the president’s health-care law. While that particular effort is unlikely to succeed this time around, Democrats will no longer be able to accuse them of not having a replacement plan for Obamacare.
“This is a starting point,” Gosar says. “We want people to be able to offer their viewpoints, and we want to share this with the American people. We’re not scared of this issue, we love this issue.”
— Andrew Stiles is a political reporter for National Review Online.
MSM will bury this news in a back closet. They may not like Obamacare but they love abortion, gay marriage & gun control. So they will keep supporting president Zero.
Obamacare is a replacement to the existing health plan in the USA. It is the best in the world and that is what Obamacare should be compared against.
It does need a few tweaks such as limiting the awards on medical malpractice lawsuits which driving up the cost of insurance for doctors and patients.
“...At less than 200 pages in length, it is considerably more digestible than Obamacare, a 2,700-page piece of legislation ..”
Ooops—if it’s not at least a thousand pages, it doesn’t stand a chance.
I don't/can't work and have no taxes to pay. So of what use is the tax deduction? This seems targeted to the upper 20% of income brackets? That's going to go over well. /sarc
Tort reform
Open insurance markets across state lines
But no. They had to go and @^%$ it up.
In addition you need something to insure precondition conditions. Find someone over 50 who’s never had a Basel Cell...detached retina....bad knee..depression..you can’t just price these folks out.
Some kind of tapering or phase-in provision is better than nothing when it comes to these thorny issues. I’d like insurance to go back inasmuch as possible to being insurance, not fancy maintenance plans as if your car insurance guaranteed so many oil changes per year.
I agree that some kind of adjustment needs to be made.
However, The whole idea of insurance is that you are purchasing protection for a future illness. A group of people purchase this protection and only a smaller number of them actually will need to use it.
It's sort of like the lotto. A large number of people each put a small amount of money in the pot and the few people that get sick are able to draw on the money to cover the bills. If people are able to draw money out of the pot after they get sick, what would be the incentive to put money in advance?
And with as much gusto as they championed ZeroCare, they will denigrate and tear up the Repub alternative.
Medical care is incredibly expensive precisely because of the orgy of governmental and legal intervention put in place over the last forty five years and all the parasite industries that feed on red tape. Now the government and its lawyers are claiming absolute dominion over the whole ball of wax, with the IRS thugs to enforce it. It doesn’t get any worse folks.
It's a legit issue. Two families pay $1000 for insurance, but one family doesn't make enough to qualify for the tax deduction. So it ends up paying that $1000, whereas a wealthier family ends up paying $600+ or whatever rate they end up with after all their deductions. If the plan doesn't include a refundable credit, it's not merely regressive - it's actually unfair.
Bad timing at it’s worse dept!!!!
We are winning now...dont move too quickly on a replacement till the battle has been won.
This just gives the enemy more life.
Our health care system is very advanced in technology.
However two things are radically wrong, and it is a very sick system which BO moved in to take advantage of like a parasite, and not to fix it.
Third party payer moved in, driving up costs and taking responsibility for health away from the individual and his and her family members.
Then the government moved in with medicare driving this system through the roof, and then providers ripped off the system out of control. This was discovered in the early eighties and massive cutbacks moved in, but by far not enough to save the system.
And our medical system is in no way a health care system. It is a sick care system It gives no credence to the patient, their family members, their true dignity, their health nor their quality of life.
It gives no allowance for preventive health care, pays lip service to nutrition and is turning into a pharmaceutical and high tech diagnostic and treatment brokerage.
If it were a healthy system, we would be a healthy culture/society. Our obesity rate is out of control. Most people are on pharmaceuticals, completely unable to care for themselves and their families with any confidence.
If you go to a good gym and talk to the trainer and look around, that is the direction for the future. They are very informed on proper nutrition.
Taking control of health, going to the doctor for catastrophy, and avoiding the same, is what used to be done. It had flaws, but we cannot afford this. Certainly not with the lack of good health apparent all around.
I went to a high school football game last week. I could faint thinking about the image of almost every woman at 200 pounds. WHAT! I look at photos of my family from the 20s through the ‘70s. No way was that kind of obesity acceptable. I remember some of those decades. No way were women nor men that obese.
Whatever overhaul we get from these guys, it has to include respect for privacy, I don’t care what it takes, we have a 4th amendment; it has to NOT entail redistribution of personal earnings.
If it goes radically in the direction of returning (returning) health decisions and care to the individual, then it will be heading in the right direction. But earners and the truly needy have to have catastrophic protection/insurance without our cost going up
If we are the best,and I suppose we can be, then we can figure out how to do that.
So, a bill 200 pages long - less than half a ream of paper - or one over 7' tall and growing?
BummerCare is much more about controlling and monitoring your evey move - and backing it up with fines and armed IRS agents than healthcare.
What kind of insanity - Is there/was there EVER a bill in history like this monstrosity?
it is all about that. Mooch’s nutritional deal is all about telling kids their parents can’t properly care for them.
She’s married to a major narcissist. What does that make her?
I digress.
BO could not give any less of a care about anyone’s health.
The Democrats don’t want affordable health care, the scumbags want control.
For certain sure.
Nor anything else about AMerica or Americans - except to destroy us.
History shows that tyrants ultimately fall - and their ends are never peaceful. May history continue to repeat itself.
Scrap ObamaCare® first¡¡¡
No reason to muddle the waters with some New convoluted plan just so you can have bragging rights.
Idiots.
We don’t want to get a POD on a New plan.
The current law is even more restrictive as to who gets the deduction. I think any GOP bill should phase out all health plan deductibility.
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