A Truly Bipartisan Health Care Reform Proposal

Submitted by thesilentconsensus on Tue, 2009-08-25 22:06.

Let's cut right to it:
The Republicans are crying foul about a lack of bipartisanship while they are not ones to be complaining. If the shoe was on the other foot, no one can claim the Republicans would even attempt to be bipartisan. The Democrats are at least providing some opportunity for bipartisanship. Their recent suggestion that they might go it alone comes after months of trying to involve the Republicans. That may be the most feasible thing to do now, but leaving politics out of it, the following would be a truly bipartisan proposal:

Democratic ideas:
1. National health insurance exchange,
2. Public option on a level playing field with private insurance similar to the one laid out by Captin Sarcastic here
3. Guaranteed issue (no preexisting condition discrimination)
4. Individual mandate for catastrophic insurance
5. Allow Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices with the drug companies (if not consolidated below in #3 below)
6. Voucher for semiannual physicals to all citizens
7. Allow prescription drug importation from Canada

Republican ideas:
1. Allowing people to buy insurance for what they see fit by abolishing mandates (such as mandating alcohol treatment, in vitro fertilization, etc... be bought when buying insurance)
2. Allow insurance to be bought across state lines
3. Consolidate Medicaid, SCHIP, and possibly Medicare into a means-tested voucher that the recipients can use for either private insurance or the public option
4. Tax health benefits through employment as income
5. Streamline the process of putting a prescription drug on the market. Keep FDA tests for drug safety, but allow prescription drug to go on the market without an effectiveness test (the effectiveness tests would still remain for those who wish to have the FDA seal of approval)
6. Streamline the process of obtaining a medical license, keeping safety requirements
7. Enable community health clinics to be on a more level playing field

Other idea:
1. Disclosure, disclosure, disclosure. Both by insurance companies of their claim refusal rate, and by doctors, hospitals, medical services, and pharmacies of their pricing (including negotiated deals with insurance companies)
2. Require insurance companies to pay back the total of all premiums paid and interest to anyone they decide to drop, and only allow dropping if they can demonstrate that the person in question intentionally engaged in deception

I think this would be a bipartisan proposal that would solve many of our current problems. Any thoughts or suggested additions?

I wish

#7408 On Wed, 2009 08 26 21:47 Captin Sarcastic said,

I could support this proposal in it's entirety, though the out of state insurance is problematic, mainly because it takes away a states right to set requirements for offering insurance in their states. Unless there is a federal standard, every insurance company in America would quickly re-headquarter themselves in
the states that require the least of them.

I think the reality is that Republicans must do everything in their power to stop healthcare reform from happening, because virtually every industrialized nation on earth has it, and likes it, and once everyone realized that the proposal is not genocide in disguise, the Democrats will become too popular and could hold majorities for decades. This is not about healthcare and whether one proposal, or one component of a proposal is good, it's a fight for survival by the GOP, so don't expect them to go along with anything.

Of course they could have headed off this political crisis by just doing it themselves during the 12 years thye held the majority in Congress, or the 6 years they held the legislative and executive branches, But they didn't, so now they can only try to make the Democrats fail, regardless of the cost to the nation, because if this passes, Republicans are looking at a long cold winter in the minority.

Or a long hot summer

#7409 On Wed, 2009 08 26 22:41 thesilentconsensus said,

It's funny, I actually said in 2004 that we need to be ready for a "cold Republican winter" and similar to Narnia, "but never Christmas." I'd welcome a long hot summer with the Republicans in the minority

As for out of state, I long held the position that if I was in state government, I'd vote to allow it, but the federal government shouldn't be the ones undermining state regulations. I've recently come around, at least partially, because I realized that if I move states, I have to change my health insurance plan, when I shouldn't have to. It should be portable. The federal government definitely has the authority to issue such a prohibition on states under the Commerce Clause, and I realize that states restricting this is a bigger hindrance to interstate commerce than meets the eye given what I just said.

Furthermore, I think a compromise could be that state governments can set whatever standards they like for insurance plans that are bought in their state (regardless of where the insurance company's headquarters are), and the plans can be bought from any state provided they meet those standards. Or is that what we have right now?

The Silent Consensus