The best-known proposal for giving people more choice is the Wyden-Bennett bill, named for Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican, who introduced it in the Senate in 2007. There are other broadly similar versions of the idea, too. One comes from Victor Fuchs, a Stanford professor sometimes called the dean of health economists, and Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and an Obama health-policy adviser.
In the simplest version, families would receive a voucher worth as much as their employer spends on their health insurance. They would then buy an insurance plan on an “exchange” where insurers would compete for their business. The government would regulate this exchange. Insurers would be required to offer basic benefits, and insurers that attracted a sicker group of patients would be subsidized by those that attracted a healthier group.
The immediate advantage would be that people could choose a plan that fit their own preferences, rather than having to accept a plan chosen by human resources. You would be able to carry your plan from one job to the next — or hold onto it if you found yourself unemployed. You would never have to switch doctors because your employer switched insurance plans.
The longer-term advantage would be that health insurance would become fully subject to the brutal and wonderful forces of the market. Insurers that offered better plans — plans that drew on places like the Mayo Clinic to offer good, lower-cost care — would win more customers.
For all those free-market conservatives out there, ever think that the private insurance "option" we have now is no option at all? It's not. By price, among other things, we are stuck with whatever plan our HR folks decide on. I've see it happen...I've seen people have to switch doctors not because it is better for them, but because HR decided to switch providers.
So why not back something like the bill described in the linked article (and summarized above)? Why have we not heard more about this?
Good question...here's an alternative...why don't conservatives (and for that matter, liberals and moderates) bring something like this up at town halls, instead of just repeating stupid (and wrong) misinformation?
That would be real debate...people would rather scream. And a potentially good alternative like this goes unreviewed and undebated.
Technorati Tags: Politics, Health Care Reform
2 comments:
"The Healthy Americans Act would guarantee every American universal, affordable, comprehensive, portable, high-quality, private health coverage that is as good or better than Members of Congress have today. The Act includes tough cost containment measures - and would save Americans $1.45 trillion over the next decade."
Well, who says conservatives do not support this bill? Its problem seems to be relegation to obscurity by the current rush for house passage of the unpopular bill Speaker Pelosi favors, and I might add, the bill which you on many occasions you have yourself seem to have defended.
It has one sponsor (a Democrat), and I've not heard a single conservative lawmaker really support ANY reform bill. Even the ones supposedly working on compromises have said (Sen. Enzi) that they are voting against it anyway...yeah, that's bipartisan negotiation. Or there's Sen. Inhofe, who said point blank that he doesn't need to read the bill or even know what is in it...he's just voting "NO".
I've defended the main proposed bill, as I think it's a good start...not perfect, but a pretty good bill. Much of the opposition to it is based in misunderstanding and believing talking heads over reading the bill itself. I am, however, open to alternatives...if they work. If Republicans had a viable alternative, if it lowered health care costs and made insurance more affordable, eliminated restrictions on pre-existing conditions, and made insurance less expensive and more available, I'd love to hear it. They have not floated anything other than ideological rhetoric (along with a raft of lies and hyperbole, i.e. "death panels").
Republicans are playing political games...they are whipping up opposition to ANY reform by making up ridiculous claims and then lashing out against those claims, getting people in a frenzy, all to make themselves look like the better alternative in 2010 and 2012. Too bad they don't try actually doing something constructive to regain a winning brand.
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