Fix Health Care Policy

Congressman Wally Herger (R-CA). (Photo: James Berglie/Zuma Press/Newscom)

Retiring House Ways and Mean Health Care Subcommittee chairman Wally Herger (R–CA) has introduced the most complete and detailed major Medicare reform proposal in a decade.

Herger leaves a rich legacy with the Save and Strengthen Medicare Act (H.R. 6645). The bill moves Medicare to a defined-contribution model with competition between traditional fee-for-service Medicare and private insurance companies. Many of its provisions are closely aligned to Heritage’s Medicare reform outlined in Saving the American Dream.

Herger’s legislation would protect and enhance Medicare for low-income beneficiaries by offering them a more generous benefit, and it would protect future beneficiaries by making Medicare more financially sustainable. The act contains changes to traditional Medicare, but it also clearly lays out a transition to premium support with the federal contribution eventually based on the minimum bid from both private insurers and traditional fee-for-service.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: enhance, Medicare, premium support, private insurance, protect, Rep. Wally Herger, Save and Strengthen Medicare Act, traditional fee-for-service

On November 7, 2007, at a speech in Bettendorf, Iowa, then-candidate Obama said:

Every four years politicians come before you to talk about health care. You hear the same promises. And then you see the same results. Well it’s time to end the outrage of 47 million uninsured Americans. It’s time to finally do something about it.

Well, not much has changed since then. Four years later, the country has 48.6 million people without health insurance and a $1.68 trillion health care law that, if it even works as claimed, would still leave 30 million people without health care.

A USA Today editorial recently praised Obamacare for increasing the number of insured by 3.6 million. But those gains include 50.8 million people enrolled in Medicaid (2.3 million more than in 2010) and 46.9 million people enrolled in Medicare (2 million more than 2010). And under Obamacare, the number of people covered by government health care will continue to rise.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: $1.68 trillion, Medicaid, Medicare, millions, ObamaCare, private insurance, repeal the law, rising health costs, uninsured

Why does anybody need a waiver to a law that’s been ruled unconstitutional? We don’t know; ask the Department of Health and Human Services. On Wednesday, HHS updated its Web site to show that it has now granted 915 waivers to Obamacare’s requirements on benefit limits in health insurance plans. The waivers allow employers to continue offering plans with annual limits on the dollar amount of benefits provided. These so-called mini-med plans are an affordable option for many workers, but they would become unavailable without the waivers.

The waivers are certainly good for the 2.4 million folks who still get to choose an affordable insurance plan, but what about the other 99 percent of Americans with private insurance? If it’s generally acknowledged that this provision makes health insurance more expensive, why not let all consumers have the option of getting mini-med plans? (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: mini-med plans, ObamaCare, private insurance, unconstitutional, waivers