Republican Solution To Budget: Stop Paying for Health Care
State Representative Garnet F Coleman is the epitome of policy. He takes healthcare reform, an issue many consider very difficult and expresses it in a manner the average American citizen can understand. I am sure many in the mainstream media are just as competent.
It is for this reason that many of us in the know are baffled that such a poor job is being done to accurately inform the American population of the realities of our healthcare dilemma and the reasons why we are in this dilemma. One cannot but come to the conclusion that because our mainstream media is corporate owned that encouragement is not given to competent journalist to report the realities of our system.
Moreover, that our journalists are not traveling the world to report on working healthcare systems and how they compare with ours is either the height of underserved arrogance, incompetence, or a willful desire to uninform and misinform. Representative Coleman’s article “Republican Solution to Budget: Stop Paying For Healthcare” is on the money.
Republican Solution To Budget: Stop Paying for Health Care
One of the primary issues you hear about in the news is how our government can continue funding healthcare, both on the state and national levels. This is an important topic; healthcare is a significant part of our state budget and Medicare in particular is one of the primary drivers of our long term national deficit (along with the Bush tax cuts, the wars, and a depressed economy). However, less attention is paid to how we are going to continue to pay for our own healthcare.
One of the reasons that healthcare is taking up such a large part of our state and national budgets is simple: the cost of healthcare is rising. However, this does not only affect how much the government spends on healthcare; it affects how much you pay out of pocket for your own healthcare. Indeed, the cost of health insurance premiums have doubled over the last decade, and, left unchecked, they could double again by 2020.
Republican proposals, such as Paul Ryan’s plan for block granting Medicare and Medicaid, and bills passed in the Texas House asking for waivers to do the same, simply address how to bring down the cost of healthcare for Government, and the solution is simple: just stop paying for healthcare.
Obviously, however, this would only pass the costs onto the rest of us. For example, seniors, after a lifetime of paying into the system, will have to pay more out of pocket for their care. In addition to costing seniors more, many of us with elderly parents or grandparents will be the ones picking up the tab directly, as none of us would let our loved ones go without the care they were once promised. The key thing to take away from the Republican plans is that they do nothing to reduce the actual cost of healthcare.
Fortunately, Democrats have ideas to reduce the cost of care, many of which can be found in federal law. Particularly, they can be found in the healthcare reform law signed President Obama in 2010. Perhaps the most revolutionary of these cost-saving reforms is the Independent Payment Advisory Board ( IPAB ). The IPAB will be composed of 15 healthcare experts charged with making specific proposals to bring down the costs of Medicare. These proposals will be implemented by the Health and Human Services Commission unless Congress specifically blocks them. In this way, the IPAB can make the crucial decision that might not otherwise be made by a sometimes dysfunctional Congress.
If you listen to Republican spin, however, this Board is nothing but a "death panel" that will "ration care" and just another example of the government getting in between you and your doctor. These charges are false and just another example of how steadfast Republican opposition is getting in the way of good, responsible policy.
In reality, the IPAB is explicitly forbidden to make any recommendation to ration care, raise revenues, increase Medicare beneficiary premiums, implement cost sharing, or otherwise restricting or modifying eligibility criteria. It is simply designed to determine best practices and invest in the things that make us healthier and stop spending our tax dollars on waste and other unnecessary items. It is perhaps one of the most important developments in terms of addressing our long-term healthcare costs.
Additionally, the law contains a variety of payment reforms designed to improve outcomes and reduce unnecessary spending, including paying for quality-based outcomes, bundled payment mechanisms so as to get providers collaborating to make us healthier, and funding for electronic medical records, which will reduce unnecessary paperwork and reduce the odds of their being a medical mistake.
These are the types of reforms we should be talking about as lawmakers. However as long asRepublicans insist on addressing our healthcare system simply by cutting healthcare funding, they are signaling to the rest of us that they are not interested in having a grown-up conversation about how we reduce the actual cost of healthcare for you and me. While I appreciate their concern for the Texas budget, I am more concerned for your own budget.
Below are our regularly scheduled news clips.
Health Care News clips For This Week
- Texas Tribune: Republican Gov. Rick Perry has made no secret of his disdain for federal health reform, or for one of its key tenets, a Travelocity-like state insurance marketplace in which consumers could choose from public and private health plans. Meanwhile, despite Perry’s stated opposition to a health insurance exchange, and the state’s participation in lawsuits aimed at overturning federal health reform, officials at Texas’ Department of Insurance acknowledge that since last fall, with the help of a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, they have been working behind the scenes to plan for a health insurance exchange.
- Politico: Forty-one Senate Democrats are urging President Barack Obama to reject GOP proposals to dramatically change Medicaid, marking the party’s strongest defense yet of the federal-state health care program. The clear message: Medicaid block grants or other caps on federal Medicaid spending cannot get through the
Senate.
- Kaiser Health News: Millions of Americans gained the right this year to appeal decisions made by health plans to an outside, independent decision-maker. But many of these consumers might not know they have the new option — and when they find out, it might be too late.
- Texas Tribune: The Texas House passed a bill today to take control of Texas health care reform. Representatives tentatively passed HB 13, a special session bill that will allow Texas to petition the Obama administration for a block grant to operate the Medicaid program, which insures poor children, the disabled and impoverished adults.
- The Hill: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that deficit reduction talks have been "civil and constructive," but she said she would not consider Medicare cuts to reduce spending.
- Kaiser Health News: A three-judge panel in Atlanta heard arguments today on whether it should reverse a Florida federal judge’s January ruling that struck down the 15-month-old health law. A key issue for the 11th Circuit Court is whether Americans can be required to obtain health insurance and whether the government can expand the role of Medicaid, the state health insurance program for low-income individuals
- Los Angeles Times: A top Obama administration lawyer defending last year’s healthcare law ran into skeptical questions Wednesday from three federal judges here, who suggested they may be ready to declare all or part of the law unconstitutional.
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