David Brooks this morning mentioned that conservative health policy analysts James Capretta and Robert Moffit have provided one of the best available roadmaps to Republican proposals to replace ObamaCare. You may not be familiar with their piece. As luck would have it, I published several posts on it here, here here here, and here. At your service….
I did not address one issue–the strategies Capretta ad Moffit would provide in protecting continuously-insured individuals with preexisting conditions. I just don’t know enough now to understand how their proposal would actually protect sick people beyond what’s already on the books due to HIPAA–or what to do about the possibility that low-income or jobless people may have trouble paying insurance premiums.
Capretta and Moffit deserve credit for presenting a reasonably concrete proposal, even if many essential details are not fleshed out. Their proposal also underscores basic differences between liberals and conservatives. As I understand it, their proposal would constrain federal spending. It also seeks to address the substantial tax expenditures associated with employer coverage. Yet it would do so by shifting costs and risks onto individuals and onto state governments, repaying the states by granting them greater flexibility to offer a more constrained package of benefits to recipients. They would also decline to cover tens of millions of people slated to be covered under current law.
PS: Yes thanks Paul Kelleher for noting disastrous usage mistake.
