Thirty-two To Ten To One
October 6th 2009 20:09
Republican/Conservatives in the House and Senate were waiting for the President to accuse them of not wanting health care reform when he gave his health care speech before a joint session of Congress. They held copies of thirty-two bills already introduced by them as evidence that they were serious about health care reform, and they were ready to interrupt the President the instant he made his accusation. However, they were pre-empted by Addison Graves “Joe” Wilson and his Tourette moment, and although they got the chance to wave their bills, nobody really took notice.
I had the chance to read the summaries of all of the bills (some of the bills are not summarized, so I read the introductions to get an idea of what the bills were about), and taken collectively, they do not provide comprehensive health care reform. Some are specific to special interest groups such as kidney patients, some are for tort reform, some provide increased benefits for military veterans or their family members, and some provide for increased Medicare benefits while others decrease Medicare benefits. Other bills strive to establish state high risk insurance pools or give employees the choice to opt out of employer coverage (I don’t know why they would want to do that except as a way to give employers the ability to coerce their employees to opt out and join state high risk pools). The bottom line is that while I personally would benefit from some of the bills through tax reductions, most Americans would not gain better health care coverage from the sum of these bills.
Enter Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, the Republican/Conservative Governor of Louisiana. Considering his degrees in Biology and Public Policy from Brown University and an M. Litt. degree in Political Science from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar (his thesis was “A needs based approach to health care”), his opinions are strictly religious ultra-right: anti-abortion, anti-stem cell, anti-same sex marriage, replacing the income tax with a sales tax, supporting a constitutional amendment against flag burning, supports the teaching of intelligent design, and supports continuation of the Patriot Act. So, it comes as a surprise that Jindal, who flubbed his chance to shine when the speech he gave in response to the President’s State of the Union speech was criticized even by Republican/Conservatives, would be able to publish an easy to read Republican/Conservative response to the Baucus health care bill making its way through the Senate.
Jindal’s plan, published as an op-ed essay, “The Conservative Case for Reform” (The Washington Post, Bobby Jindal, 10/5/09), criticizes the Democrats for failing to realize that Americans have already expressed themselves as not wanting the government option, and he criticizes Republican/Conservatives for not joining in the health care debate and offering real choices to the Democratic proposals. He offers ten “ideas to increase the affordability and quality of health care;” the ideas are not new but mined from Democratic and Republican/Conservative proposals:
1.Voluntary purchasing pools which would allow individuals and small businesses to aggregate their purchasing power to get the discounts large businesses currently receive.
2.Portability would allow the insured to own their policies, allowing them to keep their insurance as they change jobs, forcing insurers to invest in preventive care to hold down costs.
3.Tort reform to eliminate defensive medicine and unnecessary tests and stop doctors from fleeing certain high risk medical specialties.
4.Coverage for pre-existing conditions would force insurance companies to focus on quality health care.
5.Transparency and payment reform would make available payment and cost information to patients enabling them to shop around for the most cost effective care, and make payment based on outcome not volume.
6.Electronic medical records would improve patient privacy while improving speed of patient care and care efficiency, lowering cost.
7.Tax free health savings accounts (HAS) have to be available to all, and those who have them have to be encouraged to use them to help lower costs.
8.Rewarding healthy lifestyle choices encourages people to live healthier, which will lower health care costs.
9.Covering young adults by allowing them to stay covered by their parent’s policies longer would keep more people in the insurance pool, lowering the cost of insurance for each individual while providing protection to a class of individuals who very often can’t afford insurance.
10.Refundable tax credits for the uninsured would give them the choice to provide for their own health care through private insurance plans instead of government programs.
While I don’t agree with Jindal’s overall plan because it relies too much on the insurance industry and places too much faith in them to do the right thing, at least it’s a proposal without the usual right wing attacks.
Instead of thirty-two unrelated bills, why can’t the Republican/Conservatives propose one comprehensive bill that can be debated and explored in Senate committees, like the Baucus bill was? Maybe, we can even have town hall meetings with radicals screaming at Republican/Conservative Representatives and Senators trying to explain the bill; maybe radicals will hold latte parties where they pour cocoa mocha lattes into the Potomac. That’s sure to get the attention of Congress.
I had the chance to read the summaries of all of the bills (some of the bills are not summarized, so I read the introductions to get an idea of what the bills were about), and taken collectively, they do not provide comprehensive health care reform. Some are specific to special interest groups such as kidney patients, some are for tort reform, some provide increased benefits for military veterans or their family members, and some provide for increased Medicare benefits while others decrease Medicare benefits. Other bills strive to establish state high risk insurance pools or give employees the choice to opt out of employer coverage (I don’t know why they would want to do that except as a way to give employers the ability to coerce their employees to opt out and join state high risk pools). The bottom line is that while I personally would benefit from some of the bills through tax reductions, most Americans would not gain better health care coverage from the sum of these bills.
Enter Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, the Republican/Conservative Governor of Louisiana. Considering his degrees in Biology and Public Policy from Brown University and an M. Litt. degree in Political Science from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar (his thesis was “A needs based approach to health care”), his opinions are strictly religious ultra-right: anti-abortion, anti-stem cell, anti-same sex marriage, replacing the income tax with a sales tax, supporting a constitutional amendment against flag burning, supports the teaching of intelligent design, and supports continuation of the Patriot Act. So, it comes as a surprise that Jindal, who flubbed his chance to shine when the speech he gave in response to the President’s State of the Union speech was criticized even by Republican/Conservatives, would be able to publish an easy to read Republican/Conservative response to the Baucus health care bill making its way through the Senate.
Jindal’s plan, published as an op-ed essay, “The Conservative Case for Reform” (The Washington Post, Bobby Jindal, 10/5/09), criticizes the Democrats for failing to realize that Americans have already expressed themselves as not wanting the government option, and he criticizes Republican/Conservatives for not joining in the health care debate and offering real choices to the Democratic proposals. He offers ten “ideas to increase the affordability and quality of health care;” the ideas are not new but mined from Democratic and Republican/Conservative proposals:
1.Voluntary purchasing pools which would allow individuals and small businesses to aggregate their purchasing power to get the discounts large businesses currently receive.
2.Portability would allow the insured to own their policies, allowing them to keep their insurance as they change jobs, forcing insurers to invest in preventive care to hold down costs.
3.Tort reform to eliminate defensive medicine and unnecessary tests and stop doctors from fleeing certain high risk medical specialties.
4.Coverage for pre-existing conditions would force insurance companies to focus on quality health care.
5.Transparency and payment reform would make available payment and cost information to patients enabling them to shop around for the most cost effective care, and make payment based on outcome not volume.
6.Electronic medical records would improve patient privacy while improving speed of patient care and care efficiency, lowering cost.
7.Tax free health savings accounts (HAS) have to be available to all, and those who have them have to be encouraged to use them to help lower costs.
8.Rewarding healthy lifestyle choices encourages people to live healthier, which will lower health care costs.
9.Covering young adults by allowing them to stay covered by their parent’s policies longer would keep more people in the insurance pool, lowering the cost of insurance for each individual while providing protection to a class of individuals who very often can’t afford insurance.
10.Refundable tax credits for the uninsured would give them the choice to provide for their own health care through private insurance plans instead of government programs.
While I don’t agree with Jindal’s overall plan because it relies too much on the insurance industry and places too much faith in them to do the right thing, at least it’s a proposal without the usual right wing attacks.
Instead of thirty-two unrelated bills, why can’t the Republican/Conservatives propose one comprehensive bill that can be debated and explored in Senate committees, like the Baucus bill was? Maybe, we can even have town hall meetings with radicals screaming at Republican/Conservative Representatives and Senators trying to explain the bill; maybe radicals will hold latte parties where they pour cocoa mocha lattes into the Potomac. That’s sure to get the attention of Congress.
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