In speaking to House Republicans today, President Obama made a
number of disingenuous claims about integrating their proposals
into the health care legislation.
For instance, Obama said:
“From the start, I sought out and supported ideas from
Republicans. I even talked about an issue which has been a holy
grail for a lot of you, which was tort reform, and said that
I’d be willing to work together as part of a comprehensive
package to deal with it. I just didn’t get a lot of nibbles.”
The operative word here is “talked.” Republicans tried and failed
to get Democrats to address tort reform. Not only do both bills
exclude medical malpractice reform, but the House bill actually
sets up incentives that
discourage such reform at the state level.
Obama today:
“Creating a high-risk pool for uninsured folks with preexisting
conditions. That wasn’t my idea, it was Sen. McCain’s, and I
supported it, and it got incorporated into our approach.”
The high-risk pool “incorporated” in the Senate bill would only
be a temporary measure that would be in effect until 2014, when
the federal government would start requiring insurers to cover
those with preexisting conditions. McCain’s proposal on high-risk
pools was meant as a substitute for taking the drastic step of
imposing such regulations at the federal level, which distorts
the entire insurance market to address a problem that affects a
small percentage of Americans. Requiring coverage of pre-existing
conditions is popular in isolation, but inevitably leads to
skyrocketing premiums, which leads to an individual mandate
forcing healthy people into the insurance pool, which leads to
subsidies, which leads to higher taxes. But regardless what side
of this debate you’re on, the reality is that Democrats didn’t
adopt the high-risk pool idea to incorporate Republican ideas,
it’s just something to hold people over until the regulatory
regime takes over in 4 years. (And remember, the reason they
delayed implementation so long was that by postponing the bill’s
major spending provisions, they made the legislation appear
cheaper over the Congressional Budget Office’s 10-year budget
window).
More Obama:
“Allowing insurance companies to sell insurance across state
lines to add choice and competition and bring down costs for
businesses and consumers…. That’s an idea that was incorporated
into our package.”
This is another misleading statement. The impetus for the
conservative proposal to allow people to purchase insurance
across state lines is that many states have imposed so many
benefit mandates on health insurance that there are parts of the
country where it’s difficult to buy a basic medical plan with
affordable monthly premiums. Obama argued during the campaign
(and reiterated today) that free interstate purchase of insurance
would be a bad idea, because insurers would flock to states with
the least regulations. Again, regardless of what side of the
debate you’re on, all the Senate bill would do would be to allow
states to form “compacts” with one another allowing for the
purchase of insurance among any states that form a compact. The
problem is that Obamacare would impose a new federal regulatory
regime, in which there would be minimum benefit requirements
imposed at the national level. So even if states did agree to
form these compacts with one another, all it would mean is that
individuals could have the “choice” of purchasing
government-designed insurance policies on a government-run
exchange in their own state, or instead choose among
government-designed insurance policies offered on the
government-run exchange in another state.
Today’s back and forth between Obama and Republicans was great
theater, but that’s all Obama excels at. If he thinks his ideas
on health care are superior and wants to continue to discard
alternatives, that‘s his choice. But he can’t credibly argue that
he’s made a concerted effort to integrate opposing ideas into the
current legislation.
