Tuesday, March 07, 2017
Republican Congress lies
The House Republicans have revealed their proposal for "repealing the ACA, "Obamacare." It is not a repeal at all, but rather a tweaking of the basic framework. So far as I can tell, the main features are these: it replaces the subsidies with tax credits, which are effectively the same thing. It keeps the "pre-existing conditions" provision and replaces the mandate with a premium surcharge for those who go without insurance but then buy it later. This should worsen, not reduce, adverse selection, in which the sick have incentive to buy insurance and the healthy don't. It retains the comprehensive coverage of everything from pregnancy in men to prostate problems in women, and it retains the infinite dollar coverage provision. It has a number of other bad features, but most importantly it is another convoluted bureaucratic monstrosity that does nothing to advance us to a free market, nor to good incentives for consumers, health care providers, and insurers.
This strikes me as an utterly fraudulent "plan." If ACA doesn't work (and it doesn't, it's collapsing) why should this work better? I suspect that when CBO scores it, it will look very bad. Robert Laszewski calls it "mind-boggling" and explains why it won't work. He also links to Sarah Kliff's clear and non-partisan summary of the proposal on Vox. And here's something a little more partisan, Daniel Horowitz' scathing analysis on Conservative Review. All agree, this is a bad proposal.
As I wrote to a colleague, this is just what I was afraid of. I'd repeatedly said I didn't believe the Republicans wanted to get rid of Obamacare, that they'd always have an excuse..."we can't do anything until we control the Senate,"... "yes, we now have the Senate but can't do anything until we have the presidency". Now it's, "yes, we can't do anything."
This monstrosity is possibly worse than the current ACA; it is probably less financially sound (yikes!) and might do even more to encourage adverse selection. I hope this asinine proposal doesn't pass, but if it does the wrecking of private health insurance seems assured.
This is just what I expected of the GOP leadership, of course. I remember all these GOP *^@$^#*(! excoriating Ted Cruz for trying to defund Obamacare..."terrible strategy, Ted, you must wait until we have both houses and the presidency. You are a traitor who will sabotage our clever PRACTICAL strategy for repealing Obamacare."
There were also the phony repeal votes, which Cruz characterized this way: "We'll have a vote on repealing Obamacare," he said. "The Republicans will all vote yes; the Democrats will all vote no. It will be at a 60-vote threshold. It will fail. It will be an exercise in meaningless political theater."
And now that Republicans have both houses and the presidency, we see that, as Cruz warned us and Horowitz now puts it, "they lied all along."
I made a few comments on all this for a Heartland Institute release. Once they are up I will link to them or post here.
This strikes me as an utterly fraudulent "plan." If ACA doesn't work (and it doesn't, it's collapsing) why should this work better? I suspect that when CBO scores it, it will look very bad. Robert Laszewski calls it "mind-boggling" and explains why it won't work. He also links to Sarah Kliff's clear and non-partisan summary of the proposal on Vox. And here's something a little more partisan, Daniel Horowitz' scathing analysis on Conservative Review. All agree, this is a bad proposal.
As I wrote to a colleague, this is just what I was afraid of. I'd repeatedly said I didn't believe the Republicans wanted to get rid of Obamacare, that they'd always have an excuse..."we can't do anything until we control the Senate,"... "yes, we now have the Senate but can't do anything until we have the presidency". Now it's, "yes, we can't do anything."
This monstrosity is possibly worse than the current ACA; it is probably less financially sound (yikes!) and might do even more to encourage adverse selection. I hope this asinine proposal doesn't pass, but if it does the wrecking of private health insurance seems assured.
This is just what I expected of the GOP leadership, of course. I remember all these GOP *^@$^#*(! excoriating Ted Cruz for trying to defund Obamacare..."terrible strategy, Ted, you must wait until we have both houses and the presidency. You are a traitor who will sabotage our clever PRACTICAL strategy for repealing Obamacare."
There were also the phony repeal votes, which Cruz characterized this way: "We'll have a vote on repealing Obamacare," he said. "The Republicans will all vote yes; the Democrats will all vote no. It will be at a 60-vote threshold. It will fail. It will be an exercise in meaningless political theater."
And now that Republicans have both houses and the presidency, we see that, as Cruz warned us and Horowitz now puts it, "they lied all along."
I made a few comments on all this for a Heartland Institute release. Once they are up I will link to them or post here.
