Replacing Obama Care With Something That Actually Works: Part 3

Over the past two weeks we have taken a hard look at Obama Care from a myriad of different angles and have concluded that it is by far, the worse piece of legislation ever created by the Washington political class:

• The first seven posts in that series looked at how many, many Americans were losing their current insurance coverage, how many were seeing their current insurance rates go up substantially along with tremendous increases in their insurance deductibles, how many were losing access to their favorite doctors and hospitals, how the Obama Care processes were accurately deemed to be “identity thieves paradises,” the epic failure of the Obama Care data systems support, the loss of work hours for millions of Americans, how Medicare was getting its budget slashed going forward to fund Obama Care, how the creators of Obama Care never understood the root causes of our rising health care costs, etc., all because of this legislation.
• The next four posts discussed  the valued and expert opinions of four people in the health care industry and the negative ramifications that Obama Care would cause to Americans’ health care, their freedoms, and the nation’s economy.
• The next two posts were our solutions for fixing the true root causes of our escalating health care costs (e,g. obesity in America, smoking in America, the aging of America, etc.) and how to remedy the causes of high health care costs. This approach  was in contrast to Obama Care which never addressed or understood those underlying root causes and instead, created a Rube Goldberg like insurance contraption that moves health care costs around without addressing the root causes.

The first seven posts begin here:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/10/october-2013-obama-care-disaster-update.html

The expert opinion posts begin here:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/10/october-2013-obama-care-disaster-update_21.html

Our solutions to the problem and identification of the root causes begin here:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/10/replacing-obama-care-with-something.html

Today, we finish our analysis of Obama Care, for this month, by including an article from the National Review Online. The article is a quick review of a proposal from a Republican Congressman, Tom Price, who has put together and has been advocating a far simpler approach and far more rational approach to resolving our health care cost issue in this country. 

The entire article is listed below in its entirety to not give short shrift to his ideas. I include his position for three reasons:

1. It is more likely to work than the unworkable Obama Care legislation.
2. Congressman Price was a practicing orthopedic surgeon for 20 years so he has some real world health industry and medicine background, unlike most of the people who actually wrote the Obama Care legislation.
3. It refutes the argument of Obama Care supporters that the Republicans never provided any alternatives to Obama Care. That is a false statement since Congressman Price has put forth this plan THREE times since 2009. The problem is not that there were never alternative plans, the problem is that Obama and the Democrats never wanted to listen to alternatives and the mainstream media was content to never discuss any alternatives.

Highlights and positive attributes of the plan include the following:

• The proposed Price legislation is only 250 pages long, at least eight times shorter than the cumbersome Obama Care legislation, which probably gives it a better chance of being understood and being implemented.
• It leverages the existing health care delivery systems in place already so that we do not need the Federal government to build out massive new data systems structure and call centers which we already have seen are a joke and an embarrassment.
• It does not expose Americans’ private and personal information to identify thieves and other criminal elements in a faulty Federal government website and data systems debacle.
• Its focus is on leaving the health care decisions of Americans and their families in the hands of Americans, their families, and their favored doctors, not the Federal bureaucracies such as the IRS.
• It does not require the young to subsidize the old like the intergeneration wealth distribution schemes of Obama Care.
• The proposal would provide affordable coverage for every American through a series of tax credits and deductions designed to positively entice individuals into the insurance market with positive incentives, as opposed to Obama Care’s negative solution of fining, criminalizing, and siccing the IRS after those who refuse to purchase health insurance. 
• This approach leaves the doctor/patient/insurance company  preferences intact.
• It increases personal freedom by allowing individuals to opt out of Medicare and Medicaid in exchange for a tax credit, taking financial and administrative stress off of the administration of those financially shaky Federal programs.
• Price’s plan also allows those with pre-existing conditions to afford health insurance, would increase insurance company competition across state lines further reducing insurance costs, and would institute tort reform to reduce malpractice and excessive defensive medicine costs, ideas we proposed yesterday to address the underlying root causes of our high health care costs.

The sane thing about his approach is that he has a set of six principles that his propose rests on, something that I do not believe Obama Care ever had, namely principles:

1. Affordability - Obama Care is certainly not affordable with it adding substantially to the national debt and adding substantially to the health care premiums and deductibles of Americans.
2. Accessibility - Obama Care is not accessible since millions of Americans are losing access to their favorite doctors, favorite insurance plans, and hospitals.
3. Quality - Obama Care is certainly not about quality, if you look at the horrendous quality of their website skills and the horrendous quality of the training they provided to Obama Care “navigators.”
4. Responsiveness -  Check out the Obama Care website responsiveness times to answer this question.
5. Innovation - If anything, Obama Care stifles innovation by forcing Americans onto  “one size fits all” insurance plans and forces decision making upwards to Federal bureaucracies not downwards to the innovators.
6. Choice - Obama Care is providing fewer choices in plans, doctors, hospitals, etc.

Would the Congressman’s plan work? I am not an expert but since it is based on freedom of choice, simplicity of operation, the leveraging of existing industry infrastructure, the protection of personal information, and the above six principles, I do not see any way in the world it could be any worse than Obama Care’s train wreck.

It is a worthwhile alternative to discuss when Obama Care implodes, something that should have been discussed when the Congressman put it forth IN 2009 BUT WAS IGNORED BY DEMOCRATS, THE PRESIDENT,  AND PRESS FOR FOUR YEARS.
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Congressman Tom Price’s Plan to Replace Obamacare 
He has thrice proposed a comprehensive alternative, but few have noticed. 

By Andrew Stiles August 16, 2013 National Review Online

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich scolded Republicans this week for having “zero” ideas for how to replace Obamacare, a law the GOP desperately wants to repeal. It is an argument often employed by Democrats, who have been on the defensive lately as the president’s signature law has encountered a series of setbacks, and is becoming increasingly unpopular.

Either way, the notion that Republicans have no plan to replace Obamacare is news to Representative Tom Price (R., Ga.), who in June introduced a comprehensive alternative health-care plan — for the third time since 2009. [emphasis added] It was originally introduced as the Obamacare alternative from the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), which Price chaired at the time.

The 250-page legislation, known as the Empowering Patients First Act, has yet to receive a vote in the House, but currently has 32 co-sponsors, including Representatives Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.), Tim Huelskamp (R., Kans.), Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas), and Tom Cotton (R., Ark.).

The bill is a comprehensive alternative, notes Price, who has more than 20 years of experience as a practicing orthopedic surgeon. His policy proposals, which conservative experts have praised, will probably be familiar to those who have closely followed the ongoing health-care debate.

The bill aims to provide affordable coverage for all through a series of tax credits and deductions designed to entice individuals into the insurance market with positive incentives, as opposed to Obamacare’s solution of fining those who refuse to purchase health insurance. “It’s a carrot instead of a two-by-four,” Price says. 

“Regardless of where one fits in the economic spectrum, there is a financial incentive to purchase health coverage that the individual wants, not that the government forces them to buy.”

The law would allow individuals to opt out of Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health-care-benefit programs in favor of receiving a tax credit; an individual’s health coverage would be “portable” — no longer tied to an employer — so losing a job wouldn’t also mean losing insurance; individuals and small businesses would be able to access insurance pools that reduce risk for those with pre-existing conditions, and they could purchase plans across state lines. Tort reforms would cut down on physicians’ practicing “defensive medicine” and driving up costs by ordering unnecessary procedures in an effort to avoid lawsuits.

The plan is based on six principles: affordability, accessibility, quality, responsiveness, innovation, and choice. “All of those principles are violated by the Affordable Care Act,” Price says. “When you step back and look at those principles, it guides you to a system that allows patients and families and doctors to be in charge.”

And yet when Republicans talk about health care, few actually point to Price’s bill as an alternative plan, which only reinforces the perception that the GOP has no plan beyond repealing Obamacare. “No,” Price laughs when asked if his plan has gotten the attention it deserves. Why not?

“Health care is complex, and most people don’t want to necessarily deal with it until they’re either forced to, or there is a clear path forward for it,” he says. “What we have proposed is a comprehensive solution to the health-care challenges that we face. But as the political winds blow, right now most folks are looking at Obamacare and saying, ‘Well, let’s see what happens.’”

Republicans are divided on the question of how best to achieve their ultimate goal of full repeal and have had trouble reaching a consensus on most issues relating to health care. In April, after conservatives revolted, House leadership was forced to abruptly cancel a vote on a health-care-reform measure championed by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.); the measure would have created high-risk pools for individuals with pre-existing conditions. 

Currently, some Republicans want the demand for a full defunding of Obamacare to become part of the upcoming budget negotiations. Others want to see Obamacare delayed for a year, and there are still others who want to see Obamacare’s major provisions go into effect so that voters can experience the negative consequences of the Democrats’ misguided law. Not everyone believes, as Price does, that Republicans should champion an alternative solution.

“My goal is always to have a positive solution, a positive alternative if the current system isn’t working, and in health care, the current system clearly isn’t working,” he says. “The purpose of this bill is to say to folks: There are principled, patient-centered solutions in the area of health care. Here is our proposal.”

Price is also working with current RSC chairman Steve Scalise (R., La.) on a separate replacement bill that is set to be unveiled when Congress returns from the August recess. But he says that, “as a realist,” he doesn’t think Republicans are ready to unite behind an alternative health-care plan just yet. “I think we will need to see further dysfunction in the current law.”

“Obamacare will need a replacement, because it won’t work,” he adds. “We need all sorts of solutions out there on the table. Let’s have a deliberative process here, not one where something is shoved down the throats of the American people.”

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