Last night I attended the Saddleback Republican Assembly meeting in Mission Viejo to see and listen to an old friend.
Dr. Mike Kennedy, former member of the Mission Viejo Planning Commission, was the guest speaker addressing the controversial topic of nationalized health care in which he referred to “The Republican Plan” along with his own thoughts on the challenges related to the issue of providing health care for all Americans.
Dr. Kennedy’s credentials include being founder of Mission Hospital’s Trauma Center, USC professor, Physician and author.
Following text is from his blog www.abreifhistory.org in which he referenced a Republican alternative that is gaining support from many Blue Dog Democrats. The Bill is HR 3400.
The Republican Plan
“September 17th, 2009 Today, the left is panicking that the Blue Dogs may abandon Obamacare as a bad job and join the House Republicans in supporting HR 3400. What does it do ?
Let’s go through them one by one.
1. Makes individual health insurance premiums tax deductible.
2. It has a refundable tax credit for low income purchasers.
3. Makes block grants to states for reinsurance pools for pre-existing conditions. That sounds like the 2004 Kerry proposal.
4. Supports employer sponsored plans.
5. Provides “Portals” to assist in buying insurance.
6. Makes employer insurance defined benefit so the employee owns it, like 401Ks, I think
7. Creates pools for insurance and allows interstate purchase of health insurance.
8. Medicaid and SCHIP are given the option of vouchers.
9. States must cover 90% of those below 200% of poverty level before eligibility can be expanded.
10. Involves specialty societies in quality improvement.
11. Improves primary care and “continuity of care” reimbursement.
12. Allows discounts for wellness programs.
13. TORT REFORM !!!
14. The usual “waste, fraud and abuse” rhetoric.
It will be interesting to see where this goes. The House leadership has already produced a response but there seems to be some disagreement on the actual provisions of the bill, as would be expected.”
Gilbert comment. During his 60 minute presentation along with Q & A Mike stated that the French Plan contains several concepts that he personally favors. Stay tuned.
I will cover his personal remarks in a future post.
I saw that Bill OReilly is now in favor of a public option. Not for himself personally, but for working class people.
The health care discussions have been productive, imo. Single payer option is what we should press for. The health care monopolies will finally be FORCED to compete for our business by offering affordable, ethical products. Medicare for everyone should be the base standard, with individuals and businesses being able to buy supplemental insurance for additional coverage and options.
Thanks for taking the time to post personal observations, Larry.
Health care monopolies? Plural? Wouldn’t a monopoly (by definition) be a single seller? Perhaps Red Vixen meant health care cartel or oligopoly?
Health care monopoly would be the result of a “public option” because the government plan would not be subject to the same mandates, regulations, /tort liability as private insurers; and would set premiums below cost (subsidizing the plan with taxpayer dollars, i.e. worsening the debt).
Rogue Elephant.
As a side bar we just rode elephants in Zimbabwe but I do not recall them being called “rogue.”
Wikipedia offers the following as a follow up to your remarks:
“In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos / μονος alone or single + polein / πωλειν, to sell) exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.[1][clarification needed] Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods.[2] The verb “monopolize” refers to the process by which a firm gains persistently greater market share than what is expected under perfect competition.
A monopoly must be distinguished from monopsony, in which there is only one buyer of a product or service ; a monopoly may also have monopsony control of a sector of a market. Likewise, a monopoly should be distinguished from a cartel (a form of oligopoly), in which several providers act together to coordinate services, prices or sale of goods. Monopolies can form naturally or through vertical or horizontal mergers. A monopoly is said to be coercive when the monopoly firm actively prohibits competitors from entering the field.
In many jurisdictions, competition laws place specific restrictions on monopolies. Holding a dominant position or a monopoly in the market is not illegal in itself, however certain categories of behaviour can, when a business is dominant, be considered abusive and therefore be met with legal sanctions. A government-granted monopoly or legal monopoly, by contrast, is sanctioned by the state, often to provide an incentive to invest in a risky venture or enrich a domestic constituency. The government may also reserve the venture for itself, thus forming a government monopoly.’
Take note of the final words “government monopoly!”
Hmm. Does the Republican plan allow a tax deduction when you help a needy person with their health care costs? I still think expanded Health Savings Accounts are the way to go. We need to move away from any employer involvement in health care. For example, we want to give our secretary health insurance. But she does not work enough hours all year to be part of our group plan. So when she has the hours she is on our plan. Then she goes on COBRA when she does not. Then back on the plan. It is insane. All insurance should be at the individual level.
Anyhow, despite my pledge to give up politics, I am now fairly certain I will run for congress in the 44th district against Ken Calvert promoting my expanded Health Savings Account plan.
This is an old summary from the OC Register:
ASK US …
Question: In the 73rd Assembly District, what would the candidates do to increase access to health care and health insurance?
Don Patterson of Laguna Niguel asks, “In the 73rd Assembly District, what would the candidates do to increase access to health care and health insurance?” Here is an answer from Andy Favor , Libertarian candidate for the 73rd State Assembly District. His opponent, incumbent Republican Mimi Walters , did not respond.
FAVOR’S ANSWER
First off, the solution to California’s medically uninsured lies in the private sector, and not another state or federal program.
By way of background, there are three primary categories of people in California who do not have insurance. There are those who are healthy and choose to forego insurance. There are those who are between jobs and have given up coverage, and there are those who cannot afford it. The answer for all three lies in greatly expanded Health Savings Accounts.
A Health Savings Account works just like an IRA and provides a pretax savings vehicle to accumulate money to cover medical costs. Currently, to have a deductible medical insurance premium you have to itemize your taxes and even then you only get to deduct what exceeds 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income. Or, your premiums can be deductible if you are self-employed or are fortunate enough to work for an employer who has adopted a Sec. 125 plan. I think every American, legal or otherwise, should be able to pay their health insurance premiums with pre-tax dollars regardless of who they work for.
Congress has taken a good step in the right direction with the creation of “HSA Accounts.” However, these have too many restrictions and do not go nearly far enough to be considered a solution.
I envision accounts that have no contribution limits that can receive contributions from an employer or an individual, and can be used to pay the medical costs for friends, family, sponsored immigrant relations, or anyone. The entire contribution would be a page one deduction on an individual’s tax return and would generate a credit for social security taxes so that contributions have all of the benefits of a Sec. 125 plan.
The adoption of such a plan would diminish the numbers of uninsured Californians as follows:
Healthy Individuals: Tax deductibility would give healthy individuals an economic incentive to contribute to a plan knowing that they can buy a high deductible or catastrophic policy that would leave the bulk of their contribution to grow tax free to cover future medical needs, or personal enjoyment later in life.
Workers Between Jobs: Participation in a health insurance plan would be at the individual level and the medical savings account will allow families to accumulate funds to cover insurance premiums between jobs without portability issues.
Poor People: Obviously a tax deduction is meaningless to a poor person who does not pay taxes. My plan allows for an employer to contribute to a HSA for an employee as part of a salary package, but goes further in that it makes a legitimate tax deduction for people who come to the aid of a “needy family.” Because government programs typically are like a leaky hose with only pennies on the tax dollar actually going to help the truly needy, my plan eliminates the middleman so that 100 percent of aid to the needy goes to cover medical expenses without the fraud element of government programs. More money going directly to aid the poor and less fraud will result in dramatically more help for those in society who are truly in need.
My rent is $1600 a month or $19000 a year.
My rental contract is 20 pages long
The US spends $2,000,000,000,000 a year on health care
The Republican health care plan is 4 pages long.
My rental contract is 5 times longer than their entire healthcare proposal.
That’s a joke!!!
The Republicans at Obama’s big healthcare speech in early September were waving what was ostensibly a copy of the Republican healthcare plan. Congressman Grayson went over later to look at one, and just as most of us suspected it was all blank pages inside.
I’m assuming that as I continue thru the month of Sept & Oct on this blog, RV or Art posted Grayson’s famous summary of the Republican healthcare plan:
1) Don’t get sick!
2) And if you do get sick, DIE QUICKLY!
I am searching all over for specific details about the Republican Health Care Reform proposal
I know there is a 4 page summary of their ideas but those are only campaign slogans like “enact Tort reform”
Enacting tort reform is a complex issue.
I was looking for details.
My rental contract is longer than 4 pages.
Can someone direct me to the specific details included in the Republican Health Care proposal.
The Democrats have a 1000 or so pages dedicated to the issue.
I was looking for something like that.
4 pages doesn’t answer all the questions I have.
For example, if we can buy insurance across state lines, who has jurisdiction when there is an insurance dispute…the state you reside in..or the state where you purchase the insurance. Stuff like that
Norris, I partly describe and link to the Republicans’ half-assed bill in this post:
http://orangejuiceblog.com/2009/11/shameless-bloody-campbell-first-in-a-series/
Enjoy!