In the most awesome [1] display of legislative ineptitude since they presented a budget with no numbers on April Fool’s Day, the republicans have released their plan for health care reform. Now, keep in mind that as scored by the CBO, the democratic plan will increase coverage from 83% to 96% of the legal population in the U.S. by 2019 and will reduce the deficit by $104 billion over the same ten years. Of course, the republican plan was going to be “much better.” And was it? Not so much. Under the republican plan, coverage will increase from, wait for it, drum roll please 83% to a whopping, um, 83% by 2019. Well, hey, at least it’ll do more to improve the deficit, right? Well, not exactly. According to the CBO’s initial analysis, there would be a $68 billion dollar reduction in the deficit over the next ten years.
Wow! How do the republicans manage to achieve such amazing results? Simple, what they lack in sense, they make up for in strict adherence to ideology. Free market principles baby. Do they regulate insurance companies regarding rescission? Nope, instead they would create the same sort of race to the bottom that we have for credit cards. Ever wondered why most credit card companies are based in either Delaware or South Dakota? Simple, those states have passed laws that screw consumers. Since the credit card market is deregulated, Delaware and South Dakota can screw the whole country and not just their own citizens. Under the republican plan, you would be looking at the same thing for health insurance.
Awesome!
[1] In the 80s, lots of things were “awesome” to me, and I was very serious about it. Sometime in the past decade, I’ve taken to using the word again, but with 100% more sarcasm. Things are now “awesome” in the same sense as 80s hair metal bands are awesome: think Winger.