RSC unveils the American Health Care Reform Act

[Dollface]

Source: Republican Study Committee Press Release

Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Contact: Stephen Bell 202-226-9717

RSC unveils the American Health Care Reform Act

Washington, D.C. – Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise, RSC Health Care Working Group Chairman Dr. Phil Roe, and others today unveiled the American Health Care Reform Act, a bill to repeal and replace President Obama’s health care law.
“While we continue fighting to repeal the president’s health care law, it is also important to lay out the reforms we stand behind and support,” Scalise said. “American families and businesses deserve and demand real solutions to the serious problems that exist in our health care system. The RSC’s American Health Care Reform Act is a common-sense bill that will lower costs using conservative, free-market solutions which give American families more choices without the unworkable mandates and billions in taxes included in President Obama’s health care law. By allowing people to buy health insurance across state lines and pool together so small businesses and families can get the same buying power as large corporations, we can lower costs and increase choices while removing Washington bureaucrats from your health care decisions. I’m proud to lead this effort with my conservative colleagues in the RSC and look forward to debating these reforms on the House floor.”

“I came to Congress because, as a physician, I wanted to help shape policy to reform our nation’s health care system,” said Roe. “Unfortunately, during the ObamaCare debate, no one asked me or any of the other Republican doctors what we thought, despite requesting several meetings with the president because I saw this train wreck coming. We know the president’s health care law is unworkable and that is exactly why Chairman Scalise asked me to help draft a replacement bill. Our bill will not increase taxes, does not rely on mandates, expands coverage and lowers costs. The president and his allies claim that Republicans have no ideas for health care reform and that couldn’t be further from the truth. The RSC bill is a market-based, commonsense alternative to ObamaCare and I am proud to have worked with the Chairman and drafting committee on this important legislation.”

A summary of the Bill can be found here.

http://rsc.scalise.house.gov/uploadedfiles/rsc_hc_bill_-_2_pager.pdf

More including the full text of the bill at:

http://rsc.scalise.house.gov/solutions/rsc-betterway.htm

Read more: http://rsc.scalise.house.gov/uploadedfiles/113_rsc_health_care_bill_release.pdf

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Wow. Seriously? They've only had 4 years to present an alternative. I'd think I was being punked but this came from Daily Tax Report at the Bureau of National Affairs.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. They are about, what, 18 years late in coming up with this? THIS?

[Thinkingabout]

2. The GOP plan has been to oppose anything passed and signed in the Obama administration and are

Currently using Obamacare to raise money and keep their ugly faces in the news as often as possible. They never had a plan any anything coming out of the GOP will be suspect. If this Dr could not get any GOP members to put forth his plan then shame on them. In times where there was opportunity to discuss a health care bill the GOP was running off at the mouth, what else is new with this bunch.

[BlueStreak]

3. Let me see if I get this straight

Their idea for leveling the playing field is a change to an arcane tax code. And their idea for lowering the cost of the policies is to let Mississippi's tax commissioner decide what policy will be offered in my state. No standardization of policies. To competitive exchange. Just a race to the bottom to find the state that will make it the easiest for insurance companies to (literally) get away with murder.

Now that the ACA is kicking into high gear, the Republicans are doing us a great favor by reminding is how bankrupt their policies really are.

[lastlib]

4. The same "free-market" crappy policies that gave us....

.... *45 million Americans (half of them children) uninsured;
* millions more uncovered because they had "pre-existing conditions," or hit lifetime caps;
* unbridled insurance company profits while making exactly no one healthier--

doubled down.....

They call this an alternative?

[riversedge]

6. I really do not see anything that I have not seen or heard

them talk about previously. I only read the summary but not much there.

[jmowreader]

13. It does have one little improvement

Usually they just produce a bill that repeals the ACA without offering any sort of an alternative HCR bill. This time they offered an alternative. It just so happens the alternative HCR bill hits the trifecta: it's worse than the nothing they usually come up with, it's worse than Obamacare and it's worse than the healthcare you get in a prisoner-of-war camp. But...well, y'know, at least they're trying.

[Crunchy Frog]

16. It's an "alternative" that they've been pushing for years.

They're just counting on the fact that most people don't remember and never understood the implications. It's the "buying insurance across state lines" thing. It would mean that there could be no state regulation of the insurance industry because states with the least or worst regulation would simply undercut it.

For them, "cheaper healthcare" simply means that most people won't be able to afford either insurance or care and can simply be ignored and dismissed by society. It's what they've been striving for for a long time.

[jmowreader]

17. You gotta admit it sounds good

Right now, Hawaii has the cheapest health insurance in America - and that's the ONLY time you'll hear that Hawaii has the cheapest of anything. The reasons are understandable: nice weather, a good diet that's heavy on fish, fruits and veggies, and a lot of not-overly-hazardous jobs.

On the other hand, West Virginia has the most expensive health insurance in America for reasons that are as easily understandable: the weather is crappy, the air is full of coal dust, mining is the most dangerous occupation in America and their smoking statistics are abominable. (Counting the District of Columbia as a state, WV has the highest smoking rate of any state and the second highest tobacco mortality rate.)

Health insurance companies would go broke insuring West Virginians at Hawaiian rates.

I liken this to the situation when credit card companies were allowed to set their rates according to the laws of the state their bank was in. The American people were told this would allow you to shop around and find a credit card that best suited your needs. What we WEREN'T told is the credit card companies offered a huge windfall in business activity to the first state that repealed its usury law. South Dakota did, which is why all the credit card companies are now in South Dakota.

[cstanleytech]

11. It is probably related to the great plan of taxing the wealthy less to create more jobs.

And we all know how well that turned out 99% of the country.

[jmowreader]

14. How did you ever guess!

Yes, there is a tax cut in there. That goes without saying: the Republicans couldn't write a bill to change the toilet paper in the Senate latrines from Northern to Charmin without putting a tax cut in it.

[lastlib]

15. Precisely!

Conservatism is all about conserving wealth for the wealthy, and power for the powerful, and this fits right into that schema.

[xfundy]

5. Here's their real plan:

1) More guns
2) More tax cuts for the rich
3) SCREW YOU, we're in charge!

[Turbineguy]

7. Finally....

a chance for a lucrative career for serial killers.

[Cryptoad]

8. Ha,,,,,,,,

Just as I expected,,,,,at the core is a tax cut for big businesses


LMAO

[Archae]

9. I knew I'd find these two in there.

The "medical liability crisis" is due to doctors not policing their own ranks.
It took 4 lawsuits against an incompetent ER doctor, (including a lawsuit of my own after she ignored my broken collarbone,) before a local hospital finally fired the quack.

Title V – Reforming Medical Liability Law
This bill attempts to address the medical liability crisis that has played a role in the escalating cost of health care by implementing meaningful legal reforms that include caps on non- economic damages and limits to attorneys’ fees. These provisions set no caps on economic damages, which are often the largest component of liability awards, thus patients will continue to have their rights to economic damages protected.


Title VI – Respecting Human Life
Provides that nothing in this act requires health plans to provide coverage of abortion services, or permits any government official to require coverage of abortion. Prohibits federal funds authorized or appropriated by this act from covering abortion, except in the case of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is jeopardized. Ensures that no state pro-life or conscience protection laws will be preempted.

[Downwinder]

10. It is time for single payer and this is not it. If they really want to

do something submit the PNHP plan.

[jmowreader]

12. I'm sorry, folks...

but anyone suggesting that "allowing people to buy health insurance across state lines" will do anything but cause the price of health insurance to go through the fucking roof needs to be marooned on a deserted island with a fifth of rum and a loaded pistol.

I have said this before and will say it again: if you can BUY insurance across state lines they can SELL it that way too, and if you think you're going to buy it across anything except the border of a coal mining state, smoking crack is not the right hobby for you.

[tonekat]

18. You are Correct, and

...woe to the consumer who buys insurance from a company in another state and expects their states' consumer protections to apply...

[area51]

19. The ACA was a republican invention

They need to embrace it.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

20. THERE IS NO FEDERAL LAW PREVENTING BUYING INSURANCE ACROSS STATE LINES!!!!!

In fact there are a few plans you can already purchase across state lines. Do Republicans want the FEDERAL government to tell states how to regulate insurance? That sounds like big government to me.