House Republicans Offer Health Overhaul Plan
November 6th, 2009
House Republicans unveiled their proposal for health reform, Tuesday evening.
Their replacement bill of health “would reward states for reducing the number of uninsured damage limit malpractice lawsuits and medical help for small businesses to band together and buy insurance exempt from most state regulation “, The New York Times reports.” In its opening section, the Republican bill, which has no chance of passing, the promise of lower costs for health care and expand insurance coverage “without raising taxes, the abolition of benefits health insurance for the elderly, adding to the national deficit, intervening in the doctor-patient relationship or establish a government takeover of health care. ”
Unlike the Democratic bill, the Republican version “would not force people to purchase insurance or require employers to offer him. … He would not expand Medicaid or to provide federal grants to low and middle-income people to help them buy insurance. “The proposal also” would not explicitly prohibit insurers from denying coverage to people because of pre-existing conditions medical, even though many Republicans have said they agree with Democrats that the federal government should prohibit such refusal “(pears and Herszenhorn, 11 / 3).
Kaiser Health News has a copy of the legislation (Pianin, 11 / 4).
Roll Call reports that “[p] eople who have existing medical conditions would pay up to 50 percent higher than the average for insurance under” under the Republican regime. According to a draft plan released earlier Tuesday, “States would face a term, massive partly funded pools to subsidize high-risk insurance to cover those denied coverage by insurance companies with a” stable source of funding. These rates would be capped at 50 per cent higher than the average premium for standard insurance risk in a given state “(Dennis, 11 / 3).
NPR says the Republicans hope to propose the bill “as an alternative when floor debate begins, probably by the end of this week” (Rovner, 11 / 4).
CongressDaily: “House Majority Leader (Steny) Hoyer today criticized a Republican alternative, saying it would not expand the supply of insurance and provides’ no guarantee for the unity of Americans feel desired reforms, including elimination of [denial of] pre-existing conditions. Hoyer said the Republican bill would allow insurers to sell health across state borders and “very probably gut consumer protection and d ‘encourage a race to the bottom where insurance companies go to states that require less protection policies and therefore the cheapest. ” He said allowing individuals and small businesses to pool to force insurers to lower costs “leads to cherry-picking and discrimination against some Americans” (Hunt and House, 11 / 3 ).
Categories: Health Insurance | Tags: Health Overhaul Plan
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