Thursday, October 17, 2013

FreedomWorks Announces: "A Health Care Contract With America"

Guest post by Dean Clancy

For years, FreedomWorks has urged ObamaCare opponents in Congress to enunciate very clearly what they are “for.” 

We've also advocated a series of reform ideas, the top ten of which we are now pulling together into a single, easy-to-understand set of principles.

Here is what FreedomWorks is for:

A Health Care Contract with America

1) Allow everyone to maintain his current health insurance. No exceptions. (And treat everyone the same, including all Members of Congress and government employees.)

2) Allow people to own their own medical insurance and take it with them from job to job.

3) Allow all taxpayers to receive tax deductions for medical expenses, including personal Health Savings Accounts.

4) Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines.

5) Help people with pre-existing medical conditions through significant transitional block grants to states.

6) Provide all citizens advance knowledge of their health care costs (excluding medical emergencies).

7) Provide reasonable maximums for “pain and suffering.”

8) Avert Medicare’s bankruptcy by providing fewer benefits to the wealthy.

9) Allow the elderly and all doctors the choice between private insurance and Medicare.

10) Eliminate first-dollar coverage. Everyone should pay at least something for each medical service.

These principles balance boldness with achievability, injecting much-needed “patient power,” choice, and competition into the system.

It lets people choose whether to have insurance or pay for health care with cash, lets them choose the kind of insurance that actually meets their real needs (including bare bones coverage, if that's what they want), and helps them save for medical expenses without being penalized by the tax code.

(Note that the plan doesn't "throw Grandma over the cliff" -- i.e., fundamentally change Medicare in such a way that the Left can easiliy mischaracterize the reform as "harming" seniors -- nor does it force people to buy health insurance they don’t want or need [ObamaCare's individual mandate].)

If fully implemented, this plan would lower health care costs and improve access to care (as well as reduce the number of uninsured Americans) -- by voluntary rather than coercive means.

We know this reform plan will work, because we know freedom works. 

TAKE ACTION -- HELP SPREAD THE WORD



Hat tip: BadBlue News.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

F/W needs one more point: The thing that sends premiums sky high are the mandates that politicians just cannot resist demanding that insurance pay for. Every feature or condition that is covered has an actuarial risk that must flow to the premium. When there is no lifetime cap, the theoretical risk that the insurance company has is infinite. Naturally, the people in charge of management of risk must over-compensate because failure is not an option.

Strangely, or maybe not so strange, the people who find it easy to scold the rest of of about "sustainability" don't comprehend that the insurance pool must also be "sustainable.

Lastly, if I were king, I would make sure that the insurance company continually reminded the public to not confuse health insurance from medical care or even the cost of maintaining a person's health. Health insurance should be reserved for issues of substantial material cost. Everyday health costs should be paid from out-of-pocket funds.

Doom said...

It is already too late. Too many people, with now pre-existing conditions, have already been dropped from their health coverage, which now would not take them back... because... oh, right, they have a pre-existing condition! There are other reasons not such formula will work.

As is, while going forward with zerocare will be more devastating and expensive than not, what has already happened is incredibly destructive.

Anon,

Do you honestly think the people who are actually going to benefit from zerocare give a rats rip what you think? They will be using their insurance the way they use EBT cards. Not a chance. And, I think it will spread. If you are paying for a Cadillac plan, might as well get your money's worth, even if you aren't getting a Cadillac plan.