Among the health-care proposals advanced so far, here is the clear order of merit: 1. the House Republican bill (the only proposal the CBO says would lower insurance premiums); 2. the status quo; 3. the massive Democratic attempts to overhaul our nation’s health-care system and dramatically increase government control. Over at NRO, however, former Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Tevi Troy and I outline a proposal that’s modeled off of the small bill presented in these pages. It would combine the best features of the House Republican bill with far more effective help for the uninsured. Our proposal would end the unfair tax on the uninsured (and self-insured)-giving them a long-overdue tax-break similar to that which is already enjoyed by those with employer-provided insurance. The proposal, which we’re hoping Senate Republicans will review and will consider adopting as the Republican alternative, would be a “triple crown” bill: It would lower health costs, significantly reduce the number of uninsured, and be deficit-neutral. The House Republican bill hit on two of these three (not bad), while the Democratic bills in the House and Senate hit on only one (the number of uninsured) while making the other two substantially worse (health costs and deficits). And unlike the Democratic bills, our proposal would also have the added advantage of not raising Americans’ taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars, or siphoning hundreds of billions of dollars out of already barely-solvent Medicare and spending it elsewhere. We hope you’ll give the proposed bill a look-and will encourage your GOP senators to do the same.
