Thursday, June 2, 2011
Hargrove How Serious Is The GOP About Reforming Health Care?
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 1:41 PM
But in the meantime, I'll give you the CliffsNotes. Blackburn has proposed a piece of legislation, the Health Care Choice Act, that would mandate that states allow the interstate sale of health insurance — something that's currently illegal. It's the classic GOP free-market argument, the theory being that it would spur competition and drive down prices, thereby decreasing the shamefully massive number of uninsured Americans.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says that's some seriously wishful thinking — or at least it said so back in 2005. That's when Blackburn's bill was essentially proposed before, word-for-word, by Arizona Republican John Shadegg.
We were motivated to write about this by a story in The Tennessean, which proclaimed the bill as "another advance in Blackburn's profile as a policymaker in Congress." Respectfully, we call bullshit. Read on and you'll see why.
First, we got a response from a Blackburn spokesman that didn't make it into the story. When asked about worries that states with fewer insurance regulations would poach healthier people from states with more protections, consequently depleting the counterbalance that keeps rates relatively stable, he said Blackburn's bill has an answer for that. The bill leaves intact state high-risk pools, he said.
The more Pith thought about it, the less satisfactory we found that answer.
For starters, not every state has a high-risk pool. A 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation estimate puts the number at 34, with a paltry 222,000 enrollees. Why is the number so low, you ask? Because they're a well-intentioned but failed experiment. They're too damned expensive, for obvious reasons. What can you expect from an insurance pool composed of nothing but people in various states of disrepair?
Of course, this is all merely a philosophical exercise. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell the Senate will pass a repeal measure, and it could be sometime yet before the U.S. Supreme Court gets its hands on the various legal challenges wending their way through federal district and appeals courts. And don't get us started on that.
Comments (8)
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Yes, and you are right to call bullshit on this. It's just smoke and mirrors.
Each state currently has the ability to set standards for what illnesses/procedures must be covered by any health insurance policies sold within their boundaries. If interstate sales of health insurance are allowed, then the business would tend to migrate toward states with the lowest minimum requirements (much like the credit card companies migrated to South Dakota and Delaware). Lower cost policies would probably become available (although don't hold your breath waiting for Cigna and Humana to pass their savings on to you). But these lower costs would result from less coverage -- something that many consumers who buy these policies would not be aware of until it came time to file a claim. The net result would be more people in need of healthcare who could not afford healthcare, a whole lot more confusion, and probably a shifting of some costs from insurors to hospitals.
You're right to call bullshit on the Tennessean, too, though this is merely shooting fish in a barrel. Had they had known anything about the issue at all (what will you bet that they copied chunks of a Marsha press release?), they'd have understood that John McCain made this same idea the major element of his health care "plan" back in the 2008 campaign. Marsha, as usual, is less of a pioneer here than an opportunistic media whore who will gladly take credit where it is not due.
I'd be interested in hearing Marsha's answer to one question about her bill. If interstate sales are allowed, then wouldn't that open up the health insurance field to regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which could then thwart the very object of her legislation?
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I have so little respect for this woman that I wouldn't believe her, if she said water was wet.
Heh, heh, maybe she doesn't like those slutty looking shoes of yours, Amy.
Not much the SCENE won't print.
Just this once, I call bullshit. I call it on the phrase, "I call bullshit."
Instead of simply saying, "That's bullshit", I suppose the "I call" nonsense is supposed to lend some authority and formality, as if the "caller" is engaged in some highly-regulated procedure and he wouldn't call bullshit just any old time, and so when he does, it's because he has a nearly unimpeachable case. All of which is pigshit. I don't "call pigshit", I just say it's pigshit. Something Congressman Blackburn, by the way, is generally full of.
For a minute there, I was feeling like Geoffrey Nunberg.
Why is it liberals ALWAYS see the "gubbermint" as the solver of problems? Can anyone name ONE thing the govt does that is efficient, cost effective & well-maintained? Just ONE thing, please. No, I won't be holding my breath on that one.
"Can anyone name ONE thing the govt does that is efficient, cost effective & well-maintained?"
There isn't anything that is all three of those things in the private sector either, certainly not at the sheer size of things government runs, such as military, parks, schools, prisons, etc. Health-care certainly isn't- it most certainly is NOT cost effective and really not that efficient. It's why few people think eliminating Medicare and replacing it with government vouchers is going to solve the problem. We've seen the result of private companies getting involved in prisons and security services in Iraq. Efficience, cost effectiveness, and well-maintained would not be the words anyone would choose.
Thought questions for Bobsguns or anyone else who would like to try a stab at it. Have you ever heard of a local government (at least a sizable one) trying to out-source their parks or police department? The answer is most assuredly no and that is because a private company would not be able to handle it, at least not without major subsidies from the government, which would defeat the purpose.
We must have tort reform to limit the cost of malpractice and redundant testing. We need a fairly high mandatory co-pay, to prevent misuse by hypochondriacs and drug addicts. Educating patients on nutrition and promoting healthy lifestyles is vital. 80% of all chronic disease is completely preventable. We need entitlement reform. We cannot continue to pay for expensive treatments when people abuse their health. I don't know if increasing competition among insurance companies will lead more people to buy insurance, but it will certainly be a relief for those of us who do.
Tort reform is a huge red herring. Medical malpractice has never been as big a cost driver as some people think, although it gets huge play among conservatives. It drives only about 2 percent of the costs. Maybe there needs to be a cap, but if people think tort reform is going to really lower costs, they are mistaken.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/200…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-k…
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/09/16/…
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/20…
