WASHINGTON – When the House Energy and Commerce Committee meets Wednesday to complete the markup of the House’s health care reform bill, Republicans will give the panel’s majority Democrats a chance to make good on some presidential promises.
The Democrats’ bill was passed by the committee in July, and it promptly propelled hundreds of thousands of citizens to attend congressional town hall meetings all over America to register their outrage and objections.
On issues ranging from not adding a dime to the deficit to prohibiting taxpayer assistance for illegal aliens, the Republican package will address many matters raised by President Obama during his recent address to a joint session of Congress, but which are absent from the legislation written by Democrats.
U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said the package is something “the president can support, and it has no government takeover of health care. What we propose is a common sense approach that fosters competition among insurance companies, covers the uninsured, and makes health insurance more accessible and affordable for millions of American families.”
The full committee will convene at 10 a.m. TODAY in Room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, to finish its work on the health care reform bill, Part 1 of which was passed by committee Democrats after a contentious bill-writing session that stretched over 16 days in July.
Legislating is more than talk – a summary
of pending Republican ideas for action
“For those Americans who can’t get insurance today because they have pre-existing medical conditions, we will immediately offer low-cost coverage that will protect you against financial ruin.” – President Obama’s address
* Expand federal block grants for state high-risk pools that accept all patients, prohibit plans from imposing coverage caps
“As one big group, customers will have greater leverage to bargain with insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage.” – President Obama’s address
* Create association and small business health plans, individual membership associations
“Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down.” – President Obama’s address
* Allow individuals to purchase insurance across state lines
“Reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care.” – President Obama’s address
* Enact comprehensive medical liability reform (caps, health care courts, etc)
* Give liability protection to Community Health Center volunteers
“It will provide insurance to those who’s don’t [have it].” – President Obama’s address
* Continued support for Community Health Centers
* Require states to cover 90% of those below 200% of FPL before they can expand eligibility under Medicaid and SCHIP
“If you move, lose your job, or change your job, you’ll lose your health insurance too.” – President Obama’s address
* Expand and improve Health Savings Accounts:
o Increase contribution limits for employers and employees
o Allow funds to be used to pay premiums
o Cover more preventative services
o Re-establish Health Opportunity Account demonstration programs
* Allow employer to offer a “defined contribution” for health plans, giving patients more choices, flexibility, and portability
“The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” – President Obama’s address
* Require citizenship verification for Medicaid beneficiaries
“We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it.” – President Obama’s address
* Allow employers to offer discounts for healthy behavior through wellness/prevention programs
“Some can’t get insurance on the job.” – President Obama’s address
* Allow for an employer to auto-enroll employees with an opt-out, provide small businesses incentives for adoption
“This plan will finally offer you quality affordable choices” – President Obama’s address
* Allow Medicaid and SCHIP patients the option of a voucher to purchase private insurance
“[The] system is currently full of waste and abuse.” – President Obama’s address
* Expand funding for HHS OIG and Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program
* Establish health plan and provider transparency portals in each state
“I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need.” – President Obama’s address
* Prohibit comparative effectiveness research from being used to ration or deny care
“Too many seniors to pay thousands of dollars a year out of their own pocket for prescription drugs” – President Obama’s address
* Provide tax incentives to purchase long-term care insurance
“[We need] better coordination between teams of doctors.” – President Obama’s address
* Create Accountable Care Organizations under Medicare
“A woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne.” – President Obama’s address
* Prohibit insurance companies from rescinding a policy unless there was proof of fraud
“[Insurance companies] will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive.” – President Obama’s address
* High-risk pools will not be allowed to impose caps on coverage
“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future.” – President Obama’s address
* Repeal unused stimulus funding
REPUBLICAN IDEAS
Ensuring Coverage for people with Pre-existing Conditions:
This amendment will ensure that all Americans, including those with pre-existing conditions like cancer, have access to affordable health insurance.
Instead of focusing on the uninsurable Americans and getting help to these Americans as soon as possible, the chairman’s bill furthers an ideological crusade that wants to take down the current health care system in order to create a single-payer system.
Rather than engage in an ideological crusade, we want to get help to these uninsurable Americans as soon as possible.
This amendment would provide this help in the following way. It will ensure that all individuals, including those with preexisting conditions like cancer, have access to affordable private insurance by (1) requiring states to have either a high-risk pool or a reinsurance program; and (2) providing federal funding for such efforts.
Rescissions:
This amendment would ensure that people who have insurance policies don’t have their coverage taken away because they get sick.
Long Term Care Insurance:
This amendment provides incentives for people to plan for their old age and get long term care insurance before they get sick.
Comparative Effectiveness Research:
This amendment ensures that the government will not use comparative effectiveness research to ration care. The stimulus bill provided $1 billion for comparative effectiveness research but provided no protections to ensure that government bureaucrats don’t use that information to ration care.
Unlike the majority, we do not believe the government should use cost-effectiveness research to ration care. We do not believe the government should dictate to physicians and patients the manner in which their diseases, disorders, and health conditions should be diagnosed, treated and managed.
This amendment ensures that the government will not use comparative effectiveness research to deny patients access to the best treatment available. We have all heard about the stories of breast cancer patients in Britain being denied access to life-saving drugs. This amendment protects our patients from that.
More Choices in Health Care without a Government Takeover
Ability To Purchase What the Consumer Wants
The high cost of insurance is often increased by excessive state regulations. States have passed more than 1,800 benefit mandates, requiring insurance companies to cover services from hair prosthesis (wigs) to infertility treatments and support providers from acupuncturists to massage therapists. These state mandates raise the cost of insurance, which, in turn, increases the number of Americans who are priced out of the health insurance market.
According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, a 25-year-old male in good health could purchase a policy for $960 a year in Kentucky. A similar policy would cost about $5,880 in New Jersey. A family of four in New Jersey could potentially save up to nearly 75% on the cost of insurance if this bill becomes law.
This amendment provides more choices for Americans by empowering consumers and giving them the ability to purchase an affordable health insurance policy with a range of options. It will allow consumers to shop for health insurance just like they do for other insurance products – online, by mail, over the phone, or in consultation with an insurance agent in their hometown.
Individual Membership Associations
The amendment will also provide more choices for Americans through Individual Membership Associations. It does this by creating new insurance risk pools outside of the traditional employer risk pools. By authorizing Individual Membership Associations like such as the Kiwanis Club, a university alumni association, or a local Chamber of Commerce, individuals will be able to purchase their health insurance through member groups of their own choosing, and will not be tied to an employer for health coverage.
More importantly, the proposal will let Americans pick the kind of health care plan they want, and that suits their needs and their family’s needs. This will introduce market principles into health care and people will be able to truly shop with their feet, something lacking in the employer-based health care system.
Small Business Health Plans
Estimates indicate 60 percent or more of the working uninsured work for or depend on small employers who lack the ability to provide health benefits for their workers. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that small businesses do not have bargaining power that large corporations have when negotiating health care rates.
The amendment is a measure that would significantly expand access to health coverage for uninsured families across the country by creating Small Business Health Plans. To ease their burden and provide meaningful benefits to more working families, this legislation would allow small businesses to band together through associations and purchase quality health care for workers and their families at a lower cost.
Small Business Health Plans would increase small businesses’ bargaining power with health care plans and lower their health care costs by as much as 30 percent.
Allowing individuals to purchase a health care policy from the place of their choice, allowing individual membership association health plans, and small business health plans can dramatically increase consumer choice without handing people’s health care choices over to the federal government.
Wellness and Prevention
This amendment affords employers the ability to incentivize employees to engage in health behaviors so as to reduce their overall health costs and promote health and prevention. It accomplishes this by providing employers with greater flexibility to vary employee health premiums for participation in wellness programs. Employees who participate in programs to better their health, such as smoking cessation programs, could see their premiums reduced by 50 percent.
In 2006, 19 percent of employers with 500 or more employees offered workers incentives to complete a health-risk appraisal, demonstrate good health behavior, or participate in a risk-reduction program. This is up from seven percent in 2004.
The majority talks about bringing down health care costs but aside from huge new government programs, their bill does nothing to drive down health care costs associated with chronic diseases like diabetes or to encourage personal responsibility.
SCHIP/Medicaid Choice
This amendment will provide all low-income Americans with the right to choose the health care coverage that best fits their needs.
One of the dirty little secrets about the Democrats’ bill is that it forces all low-income Americans to be trapped in welfare healthcare programs like Medicaid and denies them the ability to choose any other health insurance option.
This amendment fixes this glaring problem and prevents low-income Americans from being treated like second-class citizens.
It accomplishes this goal in the following two ways:
• First, it provides all Americans on Medicaid and SCHIP with the ability to choose to receive premium assistance for their employer sponsored insurance.
• Second, my amendment gives Medicaid and SCHIP beneficiaries the ability to choose from a long list of high-quality health insurance plans that have met the strict coverage requirements that already exist in current law.
• And since we truly believe that if you like what you already have, you should have the right to keep it, every American enrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP will still have the option to keep their current standard Medicaid or SCHIP plan.
Health Savings Accounts
The majority bill would eliminate Health Savings Accounts even though millions of Americans have been signing up for this health care coverage. Rather than eliminating choices we should be making health savings accounts more attractive.
Medical Liability Reform
This amendment would provide relief for doctors and patients by adding common sense liability protections to reduce heath care costs. The majority’s bill fails to adequately address one of the most serious problems in our health care system – the medical liability crisis. At least Howard Dean was forthright enough to admit this exclusion was because the democrats did not want to take on the trial lawyers.
We all know, including the president, that fear of lawsuits drives defensive medicine and in turn costs our health care systems billions in unneeded medical tests a year. Everyone has spoken about reducing the cost curve, and reducing the cost of defensive medicine would do just that and it should be included in any health reform package.
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
The president said, and many have agreed that we must do more to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in our current health care system. However, the underlying bill shortchanges the HHS Inspector General who is responsible for investigating and prosecuting fraud and abuse. The amendment robustly funds the HHS OIG to make sure our tax dollars are being spent on health care not criminals.
