Scott Walker, Marco Rubio Propose ‘Plans’ to Replace Obamacare
By Jonathan Chait, New York Mag
Today, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio have published plans — really, not so much plans as skeletal descriptions of planlike concepts — to replace Obamacare. Their fundamental dilemma is that Obamacare provides a popular benefit to millions of voters. Appealing to the conservative base demands they eliminate the program that provides this benefit. Appealing to the general election requires them to promise something to compensate the victims of repeal. How will they fund that something? This is the basic problem that for decades has prevented Republicans from offering a health-care plan. Rubio and Walker show that they still have no answer.
The usual pattern in politics is for politicians to turn complex problems into simple ones. But covering the uninsured is a simple problem they want to make complex. The main reason people lacked insurance before Obamacare is that they did not have enough money to afford it. Some of those uninsured people had unusually high health costs. Some of them had unusually low incomes. Boiled down, Obamacare transferred resources from people who are rich and healthy to people who are poor and sick, so the poor and sick people can afford insurance.
It cuts funds, but not benefits, from Medicare. And it transfers resources to sick people through regulations. The individual insurance market is reorganized so that insurers can’t deny essential health services or jack up prices to people with preexisting conditions. This means people with expensive medical needs pay less, and people with cheap medical needs have to pay more. Repealing Obamacare means eliminating all these forms of redistribution from the rich and healthy to the poor and sick. And replacing them with … what?
(More here.)
Today, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio have published plans — really, not so much plans as skeletal descriptions of planlike concepts — to replace Obamacare. Their fundamental dilemma is that Obamacare provides a popular benefit to millions of voters. Appealing to the conservative base demands they eliminate the program that provides this benefit. Appealing to the general election requires them to promise something to compensate the victims of repeal. How will they fund that something? This is the basic problem that for decades has prevented Republicans from offering a health-care plan. Rubio and Walker show that they still have no answer.
The usual pattern in politics is for politicians to turn complex problems into simple ones. But covering the uninsured is a simple problem they want to make complex. The main reason people lacked insurance before Obamacare is that they did not have enough money to afford it. Some of those uninsured people had unusually high health costs. Some of them had unusually low incomes. Boiled down, Obamacare transferred resources from people who are rich and healthy to people who are poor and sick, so the poor and sick people can afford insurance.
It cuts funds, but not benefits, from Medicare. And it transfers resources to sick people through regulations. The individual insurance market is reorganized so that insurers can’t deny essential health services or jack up prices to people with preexisting conditions. This means people with expensive medical needs pay less, and people with cheap medical needs have to pay more. Repealing Obamacare means eliminating all these forms of redistribution from the rich and healthy to the poor and sick. And replacing them with … what?
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home