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The Spectacle Blog
A lot of conservatives and Republicans are reluctant to talk about ways to reform the national health care law while legal challenges and repeal efforts are still pending, but in the Wall Street Journal today, Mitch Daniels considers the question, “If the new law is not repealed by 2013, what could be done to reshape it in the direction of freedom and genuine cost control?”
He goes on to say:
I have written to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Services (HHS), saying that if her department wants Indiana to run its program for it, we will do so under the following conditions:
• We are given the flexibility to decide which insurers are permitted to offer their products.
• All the law’s expensive benefit mandates are waived, so that our citizens aren’t forced to buy benefits they don’t need and have a range of choice that includes more affordable plans.
• The law’s provisions discriminating against consumer-driven plans, such as health savings accounts, are waived.
• We are given the freedom to move Medicaid beneficiaries into the exchange, or to utilize new approaches to the traditional program, instead of herding hundreds of thousands more people into today’s broken Medicaid system.
• Our state is reimbursed the true, full cost of the administrative burden to be imposed upon us, based on the estimate of an auditor independent of HHS.
• A trustworthy projection is commissioned, by a research organization independent of the department, of how many people are likely to wind up in the exchange, given the large incentives for employers to save money by off-loading their workers.
While this would be slightly less bad than ObamaCare, it’s important to realize that it still wouldn’t do much to alleviate the significant problems with the law that Daniels’ outlines at the start of the piece. Nearly all of the spending in the national health care law comes from expanding Medicaid and offering subsidies to individuals to purchase insurance on these government-run exchanges, and this wouldn’t change that. And while getting rid of benefit mandates would provide individuals with more choice in the exchanges, it would still be hard to contain the growth of premiums as long as there’s a requirement that insurers cover those with pre-existing conditions. Furthermore, given the raft of new regulations introduced by the law, you aren’t going to get anything close to aproximating a consumer-driven system. What this article really does is reinforce why repealing the law is so crucial.
View all comments (7) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/02/08/daniels-on-reforming-obamacare
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Gold BC| 2.8.11 @ 1:57PM
Read between the lines Mitch Daniels is another health care sell out like Mitt Romney. Unless the federal courts completely take out Obamacare it will gradually morph into exactly what liberals want including GOP liberals.
I Survived Arlen Specter| 2.8.11 @ 2:54PM
Bingo! Daniels is a RINO & everytime he speaks he reinforces the fact he will be a disaster if nominated in 2012. I don't trust this bozo at all.
somnolence| 2.8.11 @ 2:11PM
It is still useless because the mandate apparently remains. Daniels need to use much tougher language if he runs and expects to be a serious GOP candidate in 2012.
Stan Redmond| 2.8.11 @ 2:43PM
No reform. Take Obamacare out to the field, shoot it, and bury it before it stinks up the place.
THEN you can remove all the rediculous regulations that already exist that make medical care so expensive. I use this example everytime. Why should I be forced to buy a policy with gynocological examinations and child benefits when I am a MAN with zero children? Why can't I buy a policy from a neighboring state? WHY WHY WHY???
PattyMor| 2.8.11 @ 3:40PM
Earth to Mitch Daniels, we do NOT want Obamacare. I don't want my health records in some giant data base managed by the federal government. I don't want some bureaucrat to tell me how much medical care I am allotted. Then, I don't want to have to "tip" my congressperson in order to get medical care after my care is denied.
KingCranium| 2.8.11 @ 3:54PM
Are you all serious? Or are you just blinded by dislike for the man to the point where you won't try to understand what he's saying? He's telling Sebelius that Obamacare creates expenses and responsibilities for the state of Indiana and its citizens that he finds unacceptable. The only way he will accept it is if the government gives him broad latitude to implement the bill in the way he sees fit, with its most bothersome portions removed. The federal government cannot accept that. So Daniels just told the government to take their bill and stuff it, and you're still too blinded by "truce" and "VAT" to notice.
jduvall2816| 2.10.11 @ 8:55AM
Daniels is 100% against Obamacare and will repeal it if he becomes president. You'll notice the advice he levels is if Obama care isn't repealed by 2013. That would be after the NEXT election. My guess is that he's indicating that IF Obama should win anther election and IF the Senate stays in the hands of the Dems (blocking repeal) then the only way Indiana (Daniels won't be Gov due to term limits by 2013) should only consider implementing the new Healthcare plan is if it were ammended according to his specifications. For those of you who think Daniels isn't Socially acceptable I would urge you to check his record. He is a social conservative that also understands finances and can look ahead and see that if we don't get our finances corrected before we divide ourselves on the social issues then there won't be any debate on social issues because we won't be a solidified union anymore. I guarantee he would vote conservatively on any social issue presented.....he's just saying, "let's not push the social agenda before we make sure we're going to be financially secure as an entire nation."
CHECK YOUR FACTS AND DON'T TAKE ANYONES WORD FOR 'IT'.