Bi-Partisan Health Care Reform is No Reform at All
Fresh from the presses is a supposed compromise on health care reform. The op-ed from Senators Wyden and Bennett offers us these gems:
1. “…everyone — not just those who currently get insurance through their employer — would get a generous standard deduction that they would use to buy insurance — and keep the excess if they buy a less expensive policy.”
A “generous” tax rebate? I find these tax rebate notions slightly ridiculous. If it was that imperative that we have the money to purchase insurance then why do we have to first hand it over to the government. The reason is thus:
2. “The Republicans agreed to require all individuals to have coverage and to provide subsidies where necessary to ensure that everyone can afford it.”
The government can dictate when to give you this deduction by penalizing those who “choose” not to be insured. Also, the tax collection to redistribute this money must accompany some kind of tax increase or lead to further deficit spending. Also, this seems to echo the notion of your tax dollars going directly to the insurance companies with you getting the remainder of your “generous” deduction.
3. “Our plan would give the consumer the same leverage in the health-care marketplace by creating state-run insurance exchanges through which they can select plans, including their existing employer-sponsored plan.”
I am not sure how I.E.’s lower prices (see Massachusetts), but the notion that we provide a “generous” allotment for a health care plan seems to direct more dollars to state based markets. Further, the increase in demand for plans should send the prices of plans up. Still, this seems like government sponsored price setting. For example, the insurance companies know that a certain percentage of people are buckling to the mandated insurance provision and can predict how much a group will be paid. Thus, the directors of distribution on the state level set prices by simply allotting money; the individual exerts no leverage, the bureaucracy that levels the tax deduction does.
Further, this compromise does not solve the notion of higher costs due to the illegal immigrants effect on the hospital system. If the basis for this plan is to be specifically state run from a federal dispensary then states with higher illegal populations will continue to suffer with localized budget drains.
In effect, this bill appears the first on the bi-partisan butcher block, choked with handouts to the insurance companies with no notion of regulating the rising cost of health care. Further, by denying the government to act as an honest broker in negotiating prices across the board the money we provide them carries no incentives when delivered to the insurance companies. The reason is because insurance companies know that they are getting your money.
All I can see is that we would have government subsidised status quo health care.