GOP Health Plan Promises To Meet Health Care Goals By Assigning A Smaller Role To Government

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Managed Care Weekly Digest -- A health plan introduced by two Republicans promises to make good on what it calls "ObamaCare's three broken promises": universal coverage, cost control and protection for the chronically ill. Yet the proposal spends no more money than the current system and it repeals almost all of ObamaCare's regulations (see also Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research).

"ObamaCare is a top down approach," said Pete Sessions (R-TX), Chairman of the House Rules Committee and one of the sponsors of the legislation. "ObamaCare tries to tell everyone what to do - every doctor, every patient, every employer and every employee. Our goal is to liberate people by empowering them to make their own choices and by freeing the marketplace to meet their needs."

The Senate version of the bill has been introduced by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

The centerpiece of the proposal is a health insurance tax credit that applies dollar-to-dollar to insurance premiums and deposits to Health Savings Accounts. The credit will be the same for everyone, regardless of income. The tax credit sets a floor under the insurance people will have. "Everyone will have access to insurance that looks a lot like well-managed, privately administered Medicaid," said John Goodman, a health economist who helped prepare the plan. "People will have more options if they and their employers spend additional money - but those dollars will be unsubsidized."

The sponsors say the plan gives employers and employees new tools to control costs and that they will be able to convert waste, fraud and abuse into higher take-home pay by being smarter buyers of health care. Also, because of "free market risk adjustment," health plans will specialize in the treatment of chronic conditions and will compete to solve those problems.

"The Sessions/Cassidy proposal is the freest enterprise reform ever introduced in the US Congress," said Goodman. "It minimizes and streamlines the role of the federal government and eliminates perverse incentives caused by federal tax and spending policies and unwise regulations."

Even though introduced by Republicans, Goodman says there is much in the bill that Democrats will like. "It has a much better chance of actually becoming law than any Republican proposal that I have seen so far." Goodman is the author of A Better Choice: Healthcare Solutions for America, the source of many of the provisions in the plan.

Keywords for this news article include: Politics, Legal Issues, Managed Care, Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research.

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