Alec Jacobs, Staff Writer
Ideology: Conservative | Writing from: Washington, DC
In recent weeks, as usual, liberals haven’t stopped whining. This week: that Republicans don’t want health care reform (not true), that Republicans don’t have any ideas about how to reform the health care system that they don’t want to reform in the first place (not true), and that Republicans are using scare tactics to prevent any kind of health care reform from reaching President Obama’s desk (not true).
I would dare any commenter or fellow writer on The Politicizer to find any kind of proof of a prominent Republican saying that our health care system is perfectly fine and doesn’t need any reform. Sure, most people are happy with their health care as it is now; but the Republicans not only believe reform is needed, but contrary to popular/liberal belief, they have proposed solutions. If liberals had bothered to maybe check the facts before making outlandish statements like “the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly!” (thanks, Alan Grayson!), maybe they would find that Republicans have proposed real and feasible solutions that don’t involve handing over another industry to the government.
The Republican Study Committee has put forth H.R. 3400, The Empowering Patients First Act, which has six key tenets:
1) Allow individuals to shop for insurance across state lines (something that is currently illegal, leaving Americans a choice of only a handful of insurance companies from which to choose rather than the hundreds that operate across the country).
2) Allow people to keep their insurance if they like it, and allow employers to offer an option to their employees allowing them to purchase a plan that they can keep even if they switch jobs or are laid off.
3) Keep pre-tax benefits and allow employers to offer discounts for healthy habits by keeping intact existing health and wellness programs.
4) Tort reform. While not all malpractice suits are frivolous, many of them are.
5) Lower taxes. While this is always a good idea that the Democrats never like to entertain (why give the money people earn back to them when we can just spend it on preserving different species of mice, right Nancy Pelosi?), putting money back into the pockets of the American people would allow them to purchase affordable, quality health care.
6) No abortions paid for with taxpayer money.
This is all relatively straightforward, and enacting this proposal would result in cheaper, better quality health insurance, to be bought in a free market, that would be affordable and effective.
And let’s quickly take a look at the idea that Republicans are using scare tactics, like invoking the term “death panels,” which may not be called death panels but essentially are.
President Obama said this in his televised town hall meeting on health care back in June, in response to a woman whose elderly mother needed an expensive surgery: “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.” And who would decide whether or not it was worth it to spend money on an expensive surgery for elderly patients? The Obama proposal left that decision up to a commission of medical experts. And how curious that the next day, even though the criticism, according to the White House, was totally ridiculous and unfounded, that section of the proposal was removed. Hm…
There are liberals out there right now saying that what I’ve just written isn’t true. But fine, don’t take my word for it, don’t take Sarah Palin’s word for it (even though she was right on the money), and don’t take Newt Gingrich’s word for it.
Take Robert Reich, President Clinton’s Labor Secretary and, now, economic adviser to President Obama. In a 2007 speech at the University of California at Berkeley, Reich said the following, saying that it is something that someone planning on running for an election anytime soon would never have the guts to say:
“If you’re very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life. It’s too expensive…so we’re going to let you die.”
Maybe if liberals would pipe down for a minute and stop parading the public option around like it was the Second Coming, the Republicans could actually reform the health care system in a smart, substantive way. But they just never let up.
All the other stuff aside, it is pretty hard to argue that Republicans are not using scare tactics against the liberal’s health care schemes. Linking President Obama to socialism is a scare tactic. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/20/politics/main5174417.shtml
Also: http://www.joeydevilla.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/obama_make_up_your_mind.jpg
Pretty sure thats scary to a lot of people. Would be to me if for a second I believed it.
Isaiah,
With regard to the first link, I’m not so sure that that’s really a scare tactic as much as it’s a criticism that may be too harsh.
And with regard to your second link, that’s sign was made by a liberal in response to the criticism in the first place, but that’s also a commentary on signs made by conservative protestors at tea parties, not the Republican Party establishment. Of course, protestors on both sides of the aisle will always use scare tactics in demonstrations (I wrote another article dealing with that issue here: http://thepoliticizer.com/2009/10/05/jacobs-stop-calling-our-presidents-hitler/), but to say that the Republicans as a party are using scare tactics is, I think, untrue.
WRT the first link: it’s a scare tactic, especially if you have any idea about what socialism actually means.
Alec,
I’m having some trouble with the argument proposed in the bill. The first argument is that shopping for insurance in other states is fine, but if all the insurance providers are engaging in practices of driving up costs, and excluding people for medical conditions to make a profit, shopping around doesn’t help much.
Second point, who exactly is forcing people to give up their benefits, I’d really like to know! Is it the big scary government? Please tell me who exactly is forcing people to give up benefits other than greedy corporate interests?
points 3 and 4 are very good ideas and should be included in future legislation
point 5 I guess should be expected in republican legislation, to answer your question on that Alec, even if you increased the amount of money people received on their returns, it would not be enough to cover the cost of the premiums.
Finally my favorite point, I ask you respectfully to find me the legislation that says the words, taxpayer abortions. I think we all know there is no legislation with such an extreme position, and it is slanderous to say such a thing.
Alec the fact is that the reason these reforms won’t work is because they do not address the issue. A private insurance industries goal is to make money not provide care. If the industry as a whole acts in this manner, no amount of minute changes to the market will stop it. That is why people treat the public option so seriously, in our system of unbridled capitalism we need a government option that will provide adequate care to those who need it while overall bringing the cost of private insurance down.
If you really don’t believe that a public option will work, why not look any country with government healthcare, and I don’t mean right or left wing biased articles, I mean actual scholarly work on the subject, you may be surprised by what you see.
1) If an insurance provider is driving up costs and excluding people for existing conditions, then people will leave them and buy insurance elsewhere, that is the point of competition. People won’t stand for that kind of treatment and they’ll take their business elsewhere. It works in every other industry with a variety of producers, and it would work in health care.
2) Who is forcing people to give up their benefits? Actually, the government plan would. If a business decides to pay the fine that the government imposes on a business that doesn’t provide insurance to its employees (which many business would be likely to do because it would often be cheaper to pay that fine than to provide insurance for all employees), then what happens? People lose their insurance and are left out in the cold because the government plan provided an incentive for their employers to drop coverage.
3) If insurance was cheaper in the first place (thanks to point one), AND people received more money back from their taxes, then yes, health care would be much more affordable.
4) And I think we all know that unless there is specific language in a bill, the government can find a way around anything. Republicans put forth an amendment that would include such language banning taxpayer-funded abortion, and the Democrats voted it down. What would be the harm in having specific language prohibiting it? Oh right, that it would be more difficult for the Democrats to get around that.
These reforms do address the issue: the cost, accessibility, and quality of health care. The public option does the opposite of what we need. And while I haven’t read scholarly work, I have read testimonials and spoken to people in countries with socialized medicine. It’s not popular and it’s not good quality. There is a reason people come to America for medical treatment.
I think that you are operating under the incorrect assumption that the health care industry operates within a free market. You compare it to other markets, but no other market works quit like the health care insurance industry. In Finance, a consumer provides capital for an investment and the consumer determines when they pull their capital. In the insurance industry a consumer provides capital and the company determines when the consumer receives their capital back. In fact, we have seen time and time again from whistle blowers that the insurance industry policy is to deny coverage for as long as possible. You are defending an inherently unAmerican industry that defies capitalism and preys on all of us. You falsely assume that there isn’t rationed care for many Americans, stating that if you don’t like your care, you can move to another provider. With the industry’s current ability to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions and a limited number of providers, very few people can truly move if they are dissatisfied.
You state that mobility would make insurance cheaper because it would allow individuals to pick from the hundreds of providers in the country. You don’t mention that many providers you mention are regional and wouldn’t cover your health care costs outside that region because your care would be out of their system. Just like you can withdraw cash from a regional bank outside that region for a fee, you would have to pay substantial fees to get out of system care. Your idea of mobility over state lines isn’t wrong, it would certainly help with the delivery of services if you were to have a large provider or move within a region, but it would not have anywhere near the impact that you have described.
The idea that tax breaks would solve our problems is old and has almost no merit. This goes back to the issue of the free market and consumer choice. Over the last decade, employer provided insurance premiums have increased 131 percent and employees have seen their share of job-based coverage increase at nearly the same rate during this period jumping from $1,543 to $3,515.4. Most of the costs are no longer passed onto the consumer of the employers goods since these increases are far outpacing inflation and cannot be hidden, but are instead being placed on the employees (whose wages rarely increase at the same rate). To assume that tax cuts would offset those costs for employees is correct, but it is a stop gap. That isn’t a solution. It is short term and fails to recognize that this would merely continue the trend towards more expensive health care. You are looking at a systemic, pervasive problem through the flawed lens of free market, conservatism that believes in the absolutism of the market. The inability to distinguish between a healthy free market and a market based on collusion and greed is very concerning and the real fiscal conservatives on the right really need to take a look in the mirror and see if they are walking the walk or just talking.
And I am sorry, but I won’t just take your word that Democrats voted down a Republican measure that specifically banned government sponsored abortions. Please provide the number of the amendment (assuming you are talking about HR 3200), the vote it was included with, and the specific language you allude to. I will concede the point if you can do that and only that, it is fear mongering otherwise.
And when did national tort reform become the small government Republican’s solution? Isn’t that inherently contradictory to what they stand for? You worry about government panels determining your health, but don’t have a problem with government panels determining whether you have the right to even try and use our judicial system to redress the wrongs done to you?
I want substantive, viable health care reform, but from what I can see, you are offering words and not ideas. You have to show why these words translate to a better reality, and right now I don’t see that. Your nicely crafted words and witty denunciations of the thoughtless Democrats is well and good, but that doesn’t count as solutions. Enjoyed the article, keep it up.
Here is the link you asked for regarding the abortion amendment:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/60911-committee-votes-down-abortion-amendment
I think that the problem is that you aren’t really looking at all of these ideas working together. Instead, you seem to see them separately and, therefore, think that they can’t each work on their own.
Eliminating the ban on buying insurance over state lines would also mean eliminating state regulations on health care, so that it wouldn’t just be bought and sold regionally but nationally. This cheaper care, coupled with tax cuts, would allow people to buy affordable insurance.
This is from a column written by conservative commentator Star Parker: “According to Dr. Juno Neal, a New York university economist who was formerly the head of the Congressional Budget Office, 43 percent of those 47 million can afford to purchase health insurance but for different reasons, don’t [purchase health insurance]. Twenty percent of them earn over $75k per year. Of the remaining 57 percent, a third is illegal immigrants and the rest are poor. So, we should be addressing the root cause of poverty, not looking for new ways to expand government.”
Most legal citizens of this country who are uninsured CAN afford it, but they choose not to buy insurance.
The answer is to give those people tax cuts, so they feel more able to afford it, not create a government-run plan that covers people who can already afford private insurance.