You want some fake news? I’ve got some fake news for you right here.
The GOP has no plan to replace Obamacare. That is the headline the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media try to scare the low information voters with. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As reported by Matt Vespa in Red State: The GOP not only proposed alternatives to the monstrosity of Obamacare at the time they had been advancing proposals before BHO was even elected. We can start with the five comprehensive health reform proposals that have actually been introduced in Congress:
- Ten Steps to Transform Health Care in America Act (S. 1783) introduced by Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) July 12, 2007.
- Every American Insured Health Act introduced by Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Bob Corker (R-TN) with co-sponsors Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mel Martinez (formerly R-FL) and Elizabeth Dole (formerly R-NC) on July 26, 2007.
- Senators Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the Healthy Americans Act on January 18, 2007 and re-introduced the same bill on February 5, 2009.
- Patients’ Choice Act of 2009 introduced by Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) on May 20, 2009.
- H.R. 2300, Empowering Patients First Act introduced July 30, 2009 by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA).
In addition, the GOP has developed a rich menu of potential replacement plans for Obamacare that are not of the centrally planned socialist sort but instead conservative market-oriented health policy:
- Individual Pay or Play proposed in 2005 by John Goodman; this is a minimalist version of a broader reform envisaged by Goodman built on converting the tax exclusion into universal tax credits.
- Health Status Insurance originally proposed by John Cochrane in 1995.
- Universal Health Savings Accounts proposed by John Goodman and Peter Ferrara in 2012. This combines fixed tax credits with individual pay or play and health status insurance concepts along with Roth-style Health Savings Accounts.
- Fixed tax credits. A variety of proposals have centered on using fix tax credits to replace the current inefficient and unfair tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits. Two good explanations of how that would work are here:
- James C. Capretta and Robert E. Moffit, “How to Replace Obamacare,” National Affairs, no. 11 (Spring 2012).
- James C. Capretta. Constructing an Alternative to Obamacare: Key Details for a Practical Replacement Program. American Enterprise Institute, December 2012.
- Income-Related Tax Credits proposed by Mark Pauly and John Hoff in Responsible Tax Credits (2002) and endorsed by the American Medical Association. More recently, 8 scholars from Harvard, University of Chicago, and USC–Jay Bhattacharya, Amitabh Chandra, Michael Chernew, Dana Goldman, Anupam Jena, Darius Lakdawalla,Anup Malani and Tomas Philipson—released Best of Both Worlds: Uniting Universal Coverage and Personal Choice in Health Care (2013) which also is built around a model of individual health insurance subsidized with income-related tax credits.
- Flexible Benefits Tax Credit For Health Insurance by Lynn Etheredge in 2001.
- Near-Universal Health Insurance Exchanges proposed in 2001 by Sara Singer, Alan Garber and Alain Enthoven (covers only non-elderly).
- Universal Health Insurance Exchanges proposed in 2013 by former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Avik Roy (covers Medicare and Medicaid in addition to privately insured).
Then there is the plan Bush the Younger actually proposed in 2007 which was shot down by the Democrat majority.
It was a sweeping health reform plan that would have replaced the current tax exclusion for employer-provided coverage with standard tax deductions for all individuals and families. The Bush plan called for a tax deduction that would have applied to payroll taxes as well as income taxes. Moreover, if one were worried about non-filers, the subsidy could easily have instead been structured as a refundable tax credit in which case even those without any income taxes would have gotten an additional amount. This is the kind of policy detail that easily could have been negotiated had the Democrats been in a cooperative mood in 2007. They were not.
What’s sad is that the Bush plan actually was superior to Obamacare when it comes to providing universal coverage. Remember, Obamacare actually does not provide universal coverage. The latest figures from CBO says that when it is fully implemented in 2016, Obamacare will cut the number of uninsured by only 45%, covering 89% of the non-elderly. Even if illegal immigrants are excluded, this percentage rises to only 92%. In contrast, the Bush plan (without a mandate!) would have cut the number of uninsured by 65%.
And looking back even though that font of fake news “If you like your doctor,” Obama says that he tried to get the Republicans to contribute to the creation of Obamacare however the record is very different. He didn’t consult with them at all. Instead he rammed it through using legislative tricks and deceit. It was an unconstitutional law to begin with, and it hasn’t improved with age. Even today Democrat leaders continue to perpetrate the fake news that Obamacare was a bipartisan effort.
So how does the soon to be extinguished and soon to be reversed and repudiated Obama regime react to the flurry of fake news in their allies the Drive-by Media? Why of course they seek to censor everyone else by passing the "Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act" which of course is designed to stop anything that contradicts the establishment’s fake news, disinformation, and propaganda. How fake can you get?
And if his parting shots are not enough there is the promise from the Regulator-in-Chief that he isn’t going anywhere. He campaigned on Hope and Change and all we can do now is hope for change. Four years of anti-American foreign and domestic debacles that will prayerfully end as We the People make America great again.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2017 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Replies