President Donald Trump says he wants health reform that will be better than Obamacare, better than what we had before Obamacare, and better than the Democrats’ Medicare for All. And he’s not alone. Numerous surveys show that health reform remains a top priority for Americans, who are concerned about high costs, access, and choice.
She proposes to abolish the ObamaCare exchanges—a signature Democratic accomplishment—and enroll participants in something resembling Medicare Advantage, a program expanded during the George W. Bush administration. That’s better than anything Ms. Harris’s Democratic rivals have proposed. It’s also better than many Republican reform ideas.
This week, the House repealed the tax on expensive employer-provided health plans. The tax is favored by economists because otherwise, the tax law would be subsidizing health spending – no matter how wasteful. However, John Goodman says the only good that is done by the tax is done in a very crude and ineffective way. Congress should replace the tax, he says – giving employers and their employees the option of a tax credit instead.
Donald Trump is using his executive authority far more aggressively than Obama ever did. He is not just circumventing Democrats. On health care, he is circumventing the entire GOP. Republicans in Congress, their special interest friends and think tank supporters have shown almost no enthusiasm for any of this. On the Hill, there have been no hearings. No legislation. No briefings. Not even a speech or two. In the meantime, the Trump administration is reforming the entire health care system. John Goodman and Lawrence Wedekind describe the changes in a two-part post at Forbes.
Donald Trump is using his executive authority far more aggressively than Obama ever did. He is not just circumventing Democrats. On health care, he is circumventing the entire GOP. Republicans in Congress, their special interest friends and think tank supporters have shown almost no enthusiasm for any of this. On the Hill, there have been no hearings. No legislation. No briefings. Not even a speech or two. In the meantime, the Trump administration is reforming the entire health care system. John Goodman and Lawrence Wedekind describe the changes in a two-part post at Forbes.
In an ideal world, most people would own their own health insurance and take it with them as they travel from job to job and in and out of the labor market. Some employers might have better insurance than people can find in the open market. But most employers would prefer to make a cash contribution to help employees pay their own premiums in lieu of providing insurance directly.
An Obama regulation stipulated that employers caught giving their employees pre-tax dollars to purchase their own coverage could be fined as much as $100 per day for each employee, or $36,500 a year. This was the highest penalty in all of Obamacare regulations. Thankfully, the Trump administration is eliminating this penalty and much more. Beginning next January, employers will be able to use HRAs to help employees obtain their own coverage with the administration’s blessing.
Could everyone in America live above the poverty line if only employers were less greedy? Bernie Sanders thinks that. He also thinks that Medicaid, Food Stamps and other poverty programs are subsidizing corporate greed — because they make it possible for employers to pay low wages. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) calls the federal minimum wage of $2.13 an hour for people with tip income “indentured servitude.” What’s her answer? The government should force employers to be more generous.
In one case, an insurer prevented a woman from getting a CT scan her doctor ordered. In another, a mother couldn’t afford the full regimen of special bags needed to clear her cancer-stricken daughter’s lungs. In a third case, a woman lost her health insurance and could not afford end-of-life chemotherapy. These examples come from National Nurses United, the country’s largest nurses’ union. To prevent further incidents like these, the union favors a universal, government-run health care system. A lead editorial in the New York Times last week appeared to endorse their thinking. Here is what these folks are missing.
At first glance you might think that the Democratic presidential campaign is boiling over with one new idea after another. Free health care. Free education. No more carbon emissions. There have been so many pronouncements, it’s hard to keep track of them. But that’s just at first glance. If you delve deeper, you will discover these are not ideas at all. They are feelings. Strongly held feelings, mind you. But feelings, nonetheless.