"If you like..."

"But I like my health insurance company!"

"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."

If you click the "If you like your doctor" link, you'll see all the iterations.  It's the infamous "lie" Obama told us all to sell us Obamacare, the Big Government "takeover" of America's healthcare "system."  Of course, it was not a lie, but rather a very hopeful though politically careless thing to say.  Of course, some things were going to change, and Murphy's law has an exponential relationship with change.  And it was far from a takeover of far from a system.

All the ups and downs of Obamacare aside, here's a peek at what Paul Ryan (Rep, JackKempTopia, WI) and the GOP in the House, has in mind for us now...

Our proposal will then create a new, advanceable, refundable tax credit to assist with the purchase of health insurance on the individual insurance market. The legislation creates a new code section – 36C— to do this. The credit is:

•Universal for all citizens or qualified aliens not offered other qualifying insurance

•Age-rated

•Available for dependent children up to age 26

•Portable

•Grows Over Time

The credit is not based on income. This will help simplify the verification process and expand access for Americans who have been left behind by Obamacare. Additionally, a universal credit does not create the same labor market distortions and perverse incentives as President Obama’s law did: according to CBO, the Obamacare income-based subsidy system resulted in so many lost labor hours it would be as if 2 million full-time equivalent workers left the labor force in 2025. A universal credit fixes this unnecessary disincentive to work and makes sure our tax code is built for growth.

Older Americans will receive a higher credit amount than younger Americans, reflecting the higher cost of insurance for older Americans. Taxpayers can receive credits for their dependents – including children up to the age of 26. The credit, however, is limited only to citizens or qualified aliens. Incarcerated individuals are not eligible for the credit.

The link will bring you to their policy paper.  They want to retract Medicaid, put out "advanceable, refundable" tax credits (at one point is says "monthly"), have them flat for everyone and only progressively adjusted by age, oh and override state laws (?) to open insurance markets interstate.  That's really the crux of this.

I know I haven't been posting diligently, as I've been a little out-of-it, but I beg of someone out there to explain to me first, how this is not the federal government taking over healthcare by superseding state laws, second, how this will not lead to a few big, awful, national private insurance companies who survive the race to the benefits bottom, and third, finally, WHO THE FUCKING HELL LIKES FUCKING INSURANCE COMPANIES IN THE FIRST PLACE?  That last one, I will never understand, so you can skip that one.  The only thing I can make of it is that the American private health insurance raison d'etre is a hedge against labor inflation.  It serves no other purpose.  It has nothing to do with HEALTH.

JMJ