by Bill Egnor
Enough With Senate Funding Of HRC! Do It Right, Pass The House Version
1:00 pm in Uncategorized by Bill Egnor
I am completely fed up with the Senates funding mechanism for HRC. This moronic plan to tax the high cost health plans is dumb, dumber, and dumbest! It has been clear for a long time that the Senate has been held hostage by the force of moral cowardice and (say it sotto voce) out-right corruption of a few out of touch Senators, but is that any reason to let one of the most foolish public policy choices go forward?
This policy is bad news all the way around. First off, it is thin gruel. The House plane raises 350 billion over ten years. This thing only raises 150 billion. Is there anyone who thinks it we are going to be able to do better things in the future, if we do not have enough money? Leaving HCR so poorly funded puts us in a situation where it is more likely to fail, not succeed.
Second, this policy imposes its tax on the high cost of insurance. This ignores the fact that insurance in some parts of the country is inherently more expensive because there are less people in the pool. If you wanted to tax so called “Cadillac” insurance plans then you would have to look at the level of benefits that each plan provides and tax the ones that provide over-the-top benefits. The reason the Senate is not doing that is they don’t like complex things. The greatest deliberative body in the world is shockingly short on understanding of complex issues.
