{"id":20039,"date":"2014-01-28T16:36:54","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T21:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=20039"},"modified":"2014-01-30T16:36:08","modified_gmt":"2014-01-30T21:36:08","slug":"gop-senators-unveil-obamacare-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/20039\/gop-senators-unveil-obamacare-alternative\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Senators Unveil ObamaCare Alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday<\/a>, three senior Republican Senators introduced a set of ideas that could eventually turn into the upper chamber\u2019s Obamacare alternative.<\/p>\n

The proposal <\/a>\u2013 coauthored by Senators Tom Coburn (Oklahoma), Richard Burr (North Carolina) and Orrin Hatch (Utah) \u2013 is a welcome companion to the repeal and reform plan<\/a> put forward by the House Republican Study Committee (RSC).<\/p>\n

The plans share some important elements. Both would repeal Obamacare (though the Senate plan would reinstate certain Medicare changes). Both limit medical malpractice awards in an attempt to cut down on junk lawsuits. And both would increase access to various tax-shielded vehicles like Health Savings Accounts.<\/p>\n

An interesting divergence is over whether to allow consumers to purchase health insurance across state lines. The RSC bill does, while the Coburn-Burr-Hatch proposal does not. If allowed, consumers would have more choices<\/a>, including access to cheaper out-of-state plans for those living in high regulation states.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, there is the possibility that insurance companies might cluster<\/a> in a low-regulation state, leading to a domino effect where all states cut back on coverage requirements or risk losing companies to more business-friendly states. Stripped down health insurance is fine for young and healthy people, but hardly adequate for older and sicker persons. If enough people are priced out of the market, expect the liberal solution to be expanding government programs to cover them.<\/p>\n

We know, because that\u2019s one of the arguments liberal defenders of Obamacare used to justify its passage. As Republicans deliberate on how best to reform Obamacare after it\u2019s repealed, figuring out a way to avoid that trap should be high on the priority list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, three senior Republican Senators introduced a set of ideas that could eventually turn into the upper chamber\u2019s Obamacare alternative. The proposal \u2013 coauthored by Senators Tom Coburn (Oklahoma), Richard Burr (North Carolina) and Orrin Hatch (Utah) \u2013 is a welcome companion to the repeal and reform plan put forward by the House Republican Study […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[615,3308,1829,35,1426,1447,665,4446,15],"class_list":["post-20039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-gop","tag-health","tag-insurance","tag-obamacare","tag-orrin-hatch","tag-reform","tag-richard-burr","tag-rsc","tag-tom-coburn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20039"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20053,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20039\/revisions\/20053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}