Let me get this straight:

Which side wanted to try to LOWER cost by eliminating the antitrust excemption that protects Health Insurers from competition?  Rep

Which side wanted to FORCE every person in the country to have to buy insurance from the Health Insurers thereby bring MORE business to those same Health Insurers? Dem

With the passage last night of Obamacare I’m reading this morning that the Dems are going to try to push back against the Reps between now and November with the claim that it’s the Reps that are in the pocket of the Health Insurers when the Reps try to slow/repeal/change the Legislation.  Sorry that dog don’t hunt.

Competetition is what drives down cost.  Not forced purchasing.  You don’t see Health Insurers advertising on TV because they have no need to.  They get an employer to offer their service to their employees and the employee has the option – once a year – of signing up.  Once signed up the employee is trapped with that insurer and that employer because the insurance is “owned” by the employer and there is always the threat of an illness, etc… making it difficult or impossible to get coverage with another insurer due to a “pre-existing condition.  This makes the employee little more that an indenturered slave to both the employer and the insurer.  The Dem’s legislation only solves one aspect of this but does so only through force.

Here is a better solution.

1. Eliminate the anti-trust excemption to open the Health Insurance market to competition.  In some states (like Alabama) this ban on competition has led to a single company (Blue Cross) controlling 91% of the market!  That is not competition that is monoploy.

2. Eliminate the minimum required policy options.  The other side likes to make the bogus comparison of the  (state) requirement to have car insurance as why the (fed’s) will make you get Health Insurnance.  For the sake of argument let’s say fine, you have to have Health Insurance.  What’s different?  With car insurance I can buy buy either a liability policy or a comprehensive policy.  Additionaly I can add various riders to the policy as a need (glass, towing, etc…)  With Health Insurance no such luck.  The Fed are making me buy a comprehensive policy.  I would rather have an Insurer offer me a low cost no frills high deductiable catestrophic policy coupled to a tax exempt HSA.

(Indiana is doing this to great effect: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704231304575091600470293066.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion)

This would allow me to use buy a policy to protect me if things really got bad while setting aside pre-tax dollars to cover the basic lower dollar cost things like wellness visits and checkups.  At the end of the year if I have money left in my HSA account I can use that money for whatever I want.  Leave it in the HSA, use it to pay the premimum on my catestrophic policy or spend it on a new flat screen TV.  What ever.  I don’t even have a problem on having to pay tax on that money if I pull it out of the HSA to spend on something not health related.  However, if an elective health procedure like an abortion or botox is allowed I think I could make the argument that a flat screen TV would be good for both my eyes and my mental health 🙂

If a private individual is able to purchace their own health care with pretax dollars like a business can you break the indenturered servitude between the employee and the employer.  If the employee now has no obsticle to changing jobs and since it is their own policy and not the employers policy the policy is portable.  That helps address the issue of pre-existing conditions.

Plus, if the policy was owned by the Individual and not business the health insurers woudl be having to advertise just like the car insureres do.  You can’t go an hour without seeing Geico, Progressive, State Farm, Allstate, General, etc… trying to get your business by talkiing about how much money that can save you if you give them your business.  They offer you additional discounts if you expand your relationship with them. Car, House, Property, etc…  If competition was allowed in the Health insurance market we would soon see those same broad base insurnace companies offering health policies to compete against the verticle market insurers like  Blue Cross, Humana, etc…  Because you could carry multiple policies with them you are spreading the risk which helps bring down the cost too since they would offer discounts if you added a health insurnace policy to go along with your car, boat, house, etc…

Competition is the key.  Not force.

If Nancy, Harry and Obama try to jump over the “Health Care Reform” net by having the House vote on some language to modify the Senates version of the bill while “deeming” to pass it without actually voting on that same Senate bill there will be a lawsuit.  Nancy and Co. will lose that suit on Presentment Clause grounds.

The deliciousness of them losing will be flavored by the fact that a recent and unanimous Supreme Court ruling established this precedent with the most liberal Justice of the Court (Stevens) writing the opinion in Clinton v. City of New York.

“…The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 is a 500-page document that became “Public Law 105—33” after three procedural steps were taken: (1) a bill containing its exact text was approved by a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives; (2) the Senate approved precisely the same text; and (3) that text was signed into law by the President. The Constitution explicitly requires that each of those three steps be taken before a bill may “become a law.”…”

Justice Stevens wrote the opinion and was joined by Rehnquist, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg
Scalia wrote a separate opinion that agreed with Part III and he was joined in that opinion by O’Connor and Breyer
Breyer did write a separate dissent to the case however but not in disagreement to Part III

That means on the critical aspect of the case – the steps required for a bill to become law – the Court spoke with one voice.

Until these four options are tried/included in any “reform” of the US Health care “payment system” then any such reform is really a sop for special interest.

An comment exchange on FB re: Health care reform prompted me to make this post

Want to bring down Insurance premiums and see Insurance companies respond to the marketplace?

1. Allow selling across state lines.
This will open up real competition. How many ads to you see on TV for Health Insurance?  ZERO.  How many ads do you see in a single hour on TV for Car insurance?  To many to count.  This allows for the creation of a national-wide pool of individuals (and even businesses) and brings competition for those new customers to the Insurance market.

2. Ban Insurance enrollment periods… unless the annual enrollment includes a discount.
If you can change Health Insurance companies at will any time you want they will be forced to treat their customers better or risk losing them to competitors. The “Open Enrollment” period just allows them to lock you in.

3. Encourge people to obtain high deductable catastrophic coverage and pay for routine Dr checkups etc.. out of pocket.
That’s what I do now. Had a son break a bone in his foot. Trip to the ER with x-rays and a walking cast only cost $350 when paying cash. If it had been billed through insurance it would have been thousands. The financial clerk did not know what to do when I said I was paying cash.
This will also bring down cost as a National policy of allowing the selling across statelines would usurp (and actually be in line with the purpose of the Commerce clause) the hodgepodge of protected State run Monopolies on Health Insurance through the +50 different regulations by allowing you to actually build a policy of what you want to have covered.
For example: if your local Cable/Dish company allowed you to just subscribe to the Channels you wanted to get you would have fewer to have to wade through (that you are paying for but not watching). Your bill would then be lower or the Company would be offering steep discounts on the addtional channels to get your to take them too.  This same logic would help lower Health Costs.

4. Allow individuals the same tax breaks for buying insurnace on their own as that enjoyed by businesses buying for employees.
That way your insurance is YOURS not merely a “benefit” to keep you endentued at a job.

These are just a few common sense solutions to say nothing of Tort reform, etc… Of course the corrupt Pols won’t do any of those simple fixes.

Let’s try to lower costs before adding more Government layers of control which only increase cost.

I am sick of hearing all this talk about the Senate pushing for “reconciliation” of their bill.

Take a minute for some elementary school level understanding of how the political process works.

http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/government/howabillbecomesalaw.htm 

1. The House passes a bill
2. The Senate passes a bill
3. If the bills are different they have a conference to iron out the differences then…
4. Each Chamber again votes on the new language
5. If the Legislation passes both Chambers it goes to the President for his signature

Now let’s look at how this plays with ObamaCare 

1. The House passed a bill
2. The Senate passed a bill
3. They are NOT having a conference to iron out the differences
4. They are telling the House to pass the Senate’s bill and THEN Reid and Pelosi say they will
5. Remove the items the House does not like (Cornhusker kickback, etc…) and put in things they do want (no funding of abortion language, etc…) from the bill they just passed and the Senate will then vote again on this “reconciled” bill.  Presupposing that the Senate Parliamentarian allows these changes as part of this reconciliation.
6. Then the House would have to vote again on this new Senate bill to replace the bill they just voted for.

Here is what I predict will happen IF the House does indeed pass the Senate’s rushed through bill from December.

There will be too many items that the Parliamentarian will rule impermissible for budget reconciliation and the Senate will be unable to then actually pass a “reconciliation” bill that could also pass in the House.  Then Nancy, Harry and Barack will say well we tried and just could not iron out the differences and it’s all the Republicans fault.  Therefore, Barack will “reluctantly” sign the House approved Senate bill because they “have” to pass something.