The Congressional Budget Office has issued an analysis of an
alternative health care bill proposed by House Republicans. The
bill will cost $61 billion over 10 years (as opposed to the
$1.055 trillion House Democrats bill) and reduce budget deficits
by $68 billion, according to the CBO. The bill would also lower
average health insurance premiums by 5 percent to 8 percent for
individuals, 7 to 10 percent for small groups, and zero to 3
percent for large groups. At the same time, the CBO estimates
that it would have a marginal impact on insurance coverage by
only reducing the number of uninsured by 3 million.
Overall, I wasn't very impressed by the GOP alternative, which
you can read more about here. There are some elements of
it that are good, including allowing Americans to purchase
insurance across state lines, giving businesses more flexibility
to offer financial incentives aimed at encouraging people to be
healthier, and expanding health savings accounts. But there are
also plenty of new mandates imposed by the bill, including
barring insurers from having annual or lifetime spending limits
and a "slacker mandate" that would make insurers allow adults to
stay on their parents insurance until age 25.
But more importantly, the bill doesn't do anything to move us
beyond the employer-based health care system, a system in which
the tax code discriminates against individuals purchasing
insurance on their own, workers are locked into whatever
insurance policies their employers choose for them, and they
cannot take their insurance with them when they move from job to
job. The GOP proposal isn't what I would consider real reform.
It's more of a document that Republicans have put out so they can
say they have some sort of health care bill that reduces premiums
at a fraction of the cost of the Democrats' bill.
Also disturbing to me is that the one page summary of the bill
has a chart titled, "Scorecard: Speaker Pelosi's Government
Takeover vs. GOP Common-Sense Solution" in which the GOP boasts
that while Pelosi's bill cuts Medicare by $500 billion, the
Republican alternative has $0 of Medicare cuts. This is what
we've come to -- a Republican Party that talks a big game about
standing up for small government while openly touting the fact
that their health care proposal does not touch the health care
entitlement program that is bankrupting our country.
