A BLAST FROM THE PAST:
(no this isn’t fake history, this is just rich, you couldn’t make this stuff up)
CBO boosts Obama’s health care plan
By S.A. Miller and Jennifer Haberkorn – The Washington Times – Tuesday, July 28, 2009
President Obama and his Democratic allies, scrambling to broker a health care deal Monday, finally got an upbeat assessment from Congress’ official scorekeeper when it said the plan for government-run coverage would not force out private insurers.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer trumpeted the report from the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’ nonpartisan budget analyst, that said private insurers could survive competition from a government health insurance option – contradicting a chief criticism from Republicans.
“Now we’ve heard that the reform will represent a government takeover of health care. A point of fact: The opposite is true,” said Mr. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat.
Republicans have said the public health insurance option, which would likely have low reimbursement rates, would drive private insurers out of business. They argue that once private insurers are gone, the public option would be the only health insurance option.
In the mean time note this Kaiser Foundation graph. It is pre-election so the Trump election is not part of “equation” much less “Ryan/McConnell/Trump Care”)
Tortuously, the uncertainty about any “phase 3” or even “phase 2” in the current Ryan/McConnell/Trump plan (unamended) could predictably lead still more insurers to say that, because they can’t apply actuarial methods, they must get out of the market. This article atm January at Market Watch before the Ryan/McConnell/Trump plan was introduced.
Opinion: I’m a former health insurance CEO and this is what Obamacare repeal will do
Is there stuff in the Ryan/McConnell/Trump plan to keep private insurers involved on the promise of further reforms down the road? Maybe, but we don’t know if they are adequate. An unclean break from Obamacare will aggravate uncertainty for insurers. The unclean break is due in great part to the artificial self-imposed hurdle of “reconciliation” and other Senate rules that were disregarded to bring us Obamacare. It is proper critical to end them as the phony constructs they are. That is what should be done. The “rules” protect Democrats, and hurt the American people. We realize there are Republicans who will not go along as they are comfortable protecting big government and having the excuse of the “filibuster” .
By the way, as regards the graph above, while it reflects the predicted decline in private insurers in the Obamacare “exchanges” (areas with 3 or more insurers in the market go down, areas with only one insurer in the market go up dramatically) it is still an unduly favorable graph as regards Obamacare. One would expect that from the Kaiser Foundation. The construct of “three or more” in light blue should be further segmented to show a truer picture of the results of Obamacare. For example, a showing of the decline in “six or more” we believe would reflect a truer picture of insurer availability declines due to Obamacare. In other words, but for Obamacare there were often more than six carriers willing to offer insurance in a most areas.
DLH and R Mall
