Tom Price's Obamacare replacement proposals

[WiseOne]

http://tomprice.house.gov/sites/tompric ... 202015.pdf

I like this a lot. Particularly loved the proposals about handling malpractice suits with tribunals instead of judge/juries. I did not see anything about mandating transparency in pricing, though, which was a key point that Trump made in his platform. I hope that finds its way in here.

Obamacare needs to be repealed and replaced - not tinkered with. There are too many expensive gotchas, like the funding of a thoroughly pointless "shadow" NIH (PCORI), the medical device tax, and endless quality controls that are causing administrative costs & personnel to skyrocket everywhere. This proposal would cost money, for the high risk pools and tax credits for people who have to buy individual insurance plans, but probably would be less than the cost of Obamacare, where subsidies depended on insurance costs so there was no individual incentive to shop around. And IMHO health insurance subsidies in general is money well spent.

Not sure why NPR etc are practically running around shouting "the sky is falling" on this. It's not Obamacare and obviously it's proposed by The Enemy, but other than that I don't see what they are fussing about. Obama got this issue on the national agenda and good for him. Why not try to make it as efficient and effective as possible?

[Tyler]

Not sure why NPR etc are practically running around shouting "the sky is falling" on this. It's not Obamacare and obviously it's proposed by The Enemy, but other than that I don't see what they are fussing about.

I think you answered your own question.

I'll have to see more details on the proposed Independent Health Pools to make sure they can't be gamed by insurance companies to drive up rates. But assuming the promise that one can purchase affordable individual coverage regardless of preexisting conditions (when paired with the reasonable responsibility of maintaining continuous coverage) can be taken at face value, I also don't see a problem.

[Benko]

Not sure why NPR etc are practically running around shouting "the sky is falling" on this. It's not Obamacare and obviously it's proposed by The Enemy, but other than that I don't see what they are fussing about. Obama got this issue on the national agenda and good for him. Why not try to make it as efficient and effective as possible?

Why not try to make it as efficient and effective as possible?

Because those are not the criteria important to e.g. NPR.

Because efficiency and effectiveness are not part of the progressive agenda.