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How the GOP Should Fix ObamaCare
Along the way Republicans can create real choice, real competition and real savings while protecting those who need help.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Republicans are the only ones who can fix President Obamas broken promise now.
The problem is simply stated. Millions will be losing their individual insurance policies that they were promised they could keep. They will be expected to buy more expensive ObamaCare-approved policies than they want or need, and to do so from ObamaCare exchanges that arent working.
Mr. Obamas fix, which he proposed on Thursday and which was quickly debunked by the insurance industry and its state regulators, cant work because Mr. Obama cant let it work. He has to fight to preserve the central purpose of ObamaCareto use the individual mandate and ObamaCares compulsory benefit list to capture money from unwilling buyers of ObamaCares gold-plated insurance policies to subsidize others.
Lets understand: The stumbling block to fixing Mr. Obamas broken promise is Democrats clinging to the central redistributive scheme embedded in ObamaCare. There is no reconciling the two.
Americans are beginning to understand that the essence of the Affordable Care Act is that millions of people are being conscripted to buy overpriced insurance they would never choose for themselves in order to afford Mr. Obama monies to spend on the poor and those who are medically uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions. Both Mr. Obama and Republicans are blowing smoke in claiming that the damage done to the individual market by the forced cancellation of substandard plans (i.e., those that dont meet the purposes of ObamaCare) can somehow be reversed at this point. It cant be.
What can be done is Congress creating a new option in the form of a national health insurance charter under which insurers could design new low-cost policies free of mandated benefits imposed by ObamaCare and the 50 states that many of those losing their individual policies today surely would find attractive.
Whats the first thing the new nationally chartered insurers would do? Rush out cheap, high-deductible policies, allaying some of the resentment that the ObamaCare mandate provokes among the young, healthy and footloose affluent.
These folks could buy the minimalist coverage that (for various reasons) makes sense for them. They wouldnt be forced to buy excessive coverage they dont need to subsidize the old and sick.
If this idea sounds familiar, it was proposed right here three years ago, after the 2010 elections in which Democrats lost the House due to public disquiet over ObamaCare.
Because such a move could be sold as expanding the options under ObamaCare and lessening the burden of an unpopular mandate, it always had potential to draw Democratic support. Thats doubly true now that Democrats are saddled with President Obamas promise that anybody who liked their existing insurance can keep it. Mr. Obamas promise is not literally keepable but the national charter would be the next best thing, letting millions find policies that are a good deal for them in their particular circumstances.
And, yes, this would also blow up the disingenuous financial engine of ObamaCare. This is a feature not a bug.
The ObamaCare exchanges would devolve into refuges for those who are medically uninsurable. But this seems increasingly likely to happen anyway. Having assumed the job of subsidizing the people, the federal government should do so honestly and openly and efficiently.
ObamaCare is dead on the vine. It becomes clearer by the day the only way insurers can make the Obama benefits package work at a monthly premium affordable by healthy people who dont qualify for subsidies is with massive deductibles and copays. ObamaCares individual mandate, as philosophically odious as some find it, would survive. An admirable principle buried in ObamaCarethat subsidies should be reserved for the needywould also survive.
What wouldnt survive is the Democratic scheme to force everyone, regardless of age and actuarial risk, to buy a gold-plated package of benefits that will stimulate a wasteful race to spend more resources on health care. And, down the road, by reforming ObamaCare, much else could be reformed, including Medicare and the ill-begotten and destructive link between employment and health care.
This outcome will shock liberals who have single-payer sugar plums dancing in their head right now. Lets leave them with one thought.
The government-run systems you so admire in other countries mostly came about long ago. They came about to expand access to medical care at a time when medical care couldnt do all that much for people. We live in a different age. America, lets face it, would be embarking on a single-payer system not to expand accessthough that slogan would be usedbut to deny and limit care in order to control runaway spending.
Liberals, you think you want to go there but you dont.
Intense is going to burn in hellfire.
Intense doesn't respect first amendment rights.
Intense doesn't respect first amendment rights.
"In Soon is pretty" is a favorite Kdrama. I am watching it again.
This post has nothing to do with the topic, but neither does the one I am replying to.
It is a very effective and good solution. And it won't get past Obama's veto stamp. He wants the problem, not the solution.I've seen a vision. The Wall Street Journal is telegraphing the Republicans 'solution' to the Obamacare debacle.
I want to use this thread as a kind of gauge on how this might play with voters. What do you all think?
How the GOP Should Fix ObamaCare - Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com
How the GOP Should Fix ObamaCare
Along the way Republicans can create real choice, real competition and real savings while protecting those who need help.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Republicans are the only ones who can fix President Obamas broken promise now.
The problem is simply stated. Millions will be losing their individual insurance policies that they were promised they could keep. They will be expected to buy more expensive ObamaCare-approved policies than they want or need, and to do so from ObamaCare exchanges that arent working.
Mr. Obamas fix, which he proposed on Thursday and which was quickly debunked by the insurance industry and its state regulators, cant work because Mr. Obama cant let it work. He has to fight to preserve the central purpose of ObamaCareto use the individual mandate and ObamaCares compulsory benefit list to capture money from unwilling buyers of ObamaCares gold-plated insurance policies to subsidize others.
Lets understand: The stumbling block to fixing Mr. Obamas broken promise is Democrats clinging to the central redistributive scheme embedded in ObamaCare. There is no reconciling the two.
.
It is a very effective and good solution. And it won't get past Obama's veto stamp. He wants the problem, not the solution.I've seen a vision. The Wall Street Journal is telegraphing the Republicans 'solution' to the Obamacare debacle.
I want to use this thread as a kind of gauge on how this might play with voters. What do you all think?
How the GOP Should Fix ObamaCare - Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com
How the GOP Should Fix ObamaCare
Along the way Republicans can create real choice, real competition and real savings while protecting those who need help.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Republicans are the only ones who can fix President Obamas broken promise now.
The problem is simply stated. Millions will be losing their individual insurance policies that they were promised they could keep. They will be expected to buy more expensive ObamaCare-approved policies than they want or need, and to do so from ObamaCare exchanges that arent working.
Mr. Obamas fix, which he proposed on Thursday and which was quickly debunked by the insurance industry and its state regulators, cant work because Mr. Obama cant let it work. He has to fight to preserve the central purpose of ObamaCareto use the individual mandate and ObamaCares compulsory benefit list to capture money from unwilling buyers of ObamaCares gold-plated insurance policies to subsidize others.
Lets understand: The stumbling block to fixing Mr. Obamas broken promise is Democrats clinging to the central redistributive scheme embedded in ObamaCare. There is no reconciling the two.
.
Intense doesn't respect first amendment rights.
"In Soon is pretty" is a favorite Kdrama. I am watching it again.
This post has nothing to do with the topic, but neither does the one I am replying to.
's ok. Apparently no one is interested in the topic. I'm begin to feel like Cassandra.
and be what? a gerbil?It is a very effective and good solution. And it won't get past Obama's veto stamp. He wants the problem, not the solution.I've seen a vision. The Wall Street Journal is telegraphing the Republicans 'solution' to the Obamacare debacle.
I want to use this thread as a kind of gauge on how this might play with voters. What do you all think?
How the GOP Should Fix ObamaCare - Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com
Ok... I officially give up. Can I resign as a human now?
It is a very effective and good solution. And it won't get past Obama's veto stamp. He wants the problem, not the solution.I've seen a vision. The Wall Street Journal is telegraphing the Republicans 'solution' to the Obamacare debacle.
I want to use this thread as a kind of gauge on how this might play with voters. What do you all think?
How the GOP Should Fix ObamaCare - Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com
Ok... I officially give up. Can I resign as a human now?
The R has said they do not want to "fix it". For a while, they were pretending they wanted to "replace" it but they've stopped that lie now.
The only thing they have is the lie that they can and/or will repeal/defund. Both really are lies and they know it but, according that their weird little spokes-twerp, Preibus, that's what they're going to run on.
What does the head of R party, lushbo, have to say?
