Failed Liberal Policy:
Two new reports out yesterday continue to knock down President Obama's promises about Obamacare: his "If you like your plan, you can keep it," and the promise to significantly shrink the ranks of the uninsured.
According to a new study from consulting firm Deloitte, almost one of out of 10 employers said they are going to drop coverage for their employees because of Obamacare, while another 10 percent said they "remain unsure" about what they are going to do. As the vast majority of Americans have health insurance through their workplaces, this is a huge blow.
Morning Bell: Obamacare Leaves As Many Uninsured As It Covers
Surprise...a lobbying firm who contributes 25% to Democrats and 74% to Republicans says something negative about a health care bill that has been labeled 'Obamacare', but is actually a Republican/Heritage Foundation bill from the early 1990's.
The whole idea behind the Republican bill in 1993 was to move away from employer based insurance and offer an individual mandate instead of the employer mandate focus of the Democrats at the time.
Let's let Robert Moffit, who was deputy director of domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation back in 1994 explain. Here is what conservatives said when THEY proposed the individual mandate in the leading Senate alternative to the Clinton plan.
Personal Freedom, Responsibility, And Mandates
by Robert E. Moffit
A Snare And A Delusion
Employer-based health insurance in this country is the product of wartime economic and tax policy of the 1940s. There is no reason why health reform in the 1990s should be governed by those unique circumstances and outdated tax policies.
Uwe Reinhardt and Alan Krueger tell us that the tax treatment of employment-based health insurance now is sharply regressive. And, Mark Pauly confirms, it contributes to market distortions, high costs, and lack of portability in health insurance. Americans today get tax relief for health insurance on only one condition: that they get it from their employer. This has tied health insurance to the workplace in a way that no other insurance is treated. It means that if we lose or change a job, we lose our health coverage.
Pauly also tells us that employer-based insurance hides the true costs of health care. Thus, there is no normal collision between the forces of supply and demand on even the most basic level. Most workers do not purchase health insurance; it is purchased by somebody else, usually the company. For most workers, it is a “free good,” an extra, that automatically comes with the job. At least, we live with that comfortable illusion. But, in fact, it is not free at all, and the employer gives us nothing. Because too many people think that the employer’s contribution is the employer’s money and not theirs, the consumer’s perception is distorted (as is the provider’s), and health spending is not subject to market discipline. Likewise, because too many people still do not understand this reality, “hidden taxes” through the employer mandate are politically attractive. Such a mandate thus serves as a psychological snare and an economic delusion.
Karen Davis and Cathy Schoen suggest a payroll tax to finance reform, whereby the employer pays 8 percent and the employee pays 2 percent. If one of our tasks is to make the true costs transparent, this suggestion does not help very much.
In his otherwise enlightening paper, Reinhardt calls attention to the virtues of a “mandated purchase” of health insurance. And he warns that calling an employer’s “mandated purchase” a “tax” comes close to debasing the English language. But, in a similar context, Reinhardt uses the word contribution to describe suspiciously similar functions. Suffice it to say, the campaign for linguistic precision is hardly advanced by using the word contibution to describe the state’s forcible extraction of citizens’ money.
In another context, Reinhardt proposes perhaps the best single reform idea to date. He suggests a simple financial disclosure on the part of the nation’s employers, requiring every employer to put periodically on the pay stub of every worker in America something like the following: “We have paid you X thousand dollars in health benefits. This has reduced your wages by X thousand dollars.” We would add: “Have a nice day!„5
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/13/2/101.full.pdf
