One of President Obama’s chief talking points on his healthcare reform agenda is that choice and competition will be preserved. That is, those with private insurance plans will be able to keep them, and the “public plan” will compete with private plans. It’s the former that we’ll take a closer look at today.
Many policy wonks working in committees on the Hill toil, day-in and day-out, attracting little notice except from members (or perhaps being spotted by friends at home sitting in a hearing on C-Span). But whoever helped name the provision making private insurance illegal in the Democrats latest attempt at “reform”, is sure to soon become famous.
Reports IBD:
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states:
“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
Before bills were introduced, we heard a lot of broad platitudes from the Obama Administration about their proposals on healthcare reform. Now, with bills in the hopper (albeit more than 1,000 pages in length), the devil is being revealed in the details. More from IBD:
What wasn’t known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.
Congressman Dave Reichert (R-WA) put a bullseye on this issue during a hearing before the House Ways & Means Committee today. (Aside: the wonk who’s about to be famous may very well be in the audience)
Even though it was written in the finest form of doublespeak (or “legispeak” as the wonk language is known), the meaning is plain to those who know what to look for. Will there be other contradictions between what the President promised and his Super Majority in Congress have proposed?
We’ll let you know that, after we get deeper into the remaining 1,000 pages.
Tags: Choice, Competition, healthcare reform, Investors Business Daily, private insurance
