Marco Rubio, trying to catch up to the conversation.
It's an article of faith among Republicans that Obamacare has failed, despite all evidence to the contrary. Millions have obtained insurance. Jobs were not killed. People have more flexibility in leaving jobs or cutting their work hours. Premium costs have risen more modestly than pre-reform. Medicare spending has slowed dramatically. And yet, Republicans continue to insist that the exact opposite has happened. The latest is Marco Rubio, who
scrawls his imaginings and his "plan" to replace Obamacare at Politico.
Since ObamaCare’s passage, many Americans have seen the law transition from a political mess to a personal disaster. Some have lost access to their doctors or the insurance plans they were happy with. Many have been forced to pay higher premiums and higher deductibles. Others have lost their jobs or had their hours cut. And the American economy as a whole has labored under the negative effects of Obamacare’s $1.2 trillion tax hike.
All of which is demonstrably not true and all of which he continues to belabor for three more paragraphs, making the rest of his column pretty meaningless. But he does eventually get around to his big ideas. The first is essentially ripped right out of Obamacare: "an advanceable, refundable tax credit that all Americans can use to purchase health insurance." That's, in essence, the Obamacare subsidies. Rubio goes on to say that his idea "will prevent large-scale disruptions and reform a provision in our tax code that has been driving up health costs, hurting those who are self-employed and preventing Americans from having truly portable health insurance plans that travel with them regardless of where they work." Which is exactly what Obamacare has done.
Okay, then, what's the next big idea? "Second, I will reform insurance regulations to lower costs, encourage innovation, and protect the vulnerable." Which, once again, Obamacare has done. How Rubio proposes to do this doesn't really match his goals: federally funded high-risk pools in the states—a pre-Obamacare experiment in some states that mostly failed because it cost too much for patients, and yet is a staple of Republican "plans"; purchasing insurance across state lines, which we've heard over and over again from Republicans and which, without stricter federal regulations really won't accomplish much; and health savings accounts, because the problem now is people have way too much extra money floating around to put into these accounts.
Just to show how Republican, and utterly bereft of independent thinking he is, he then turns to Medicare and Medicaid.
Without reforms, these programs will eventually run out of money. We must move Medicaid into a per-capita block grant system, preserving funding for its recipients while freeing states from Washington mandates. While current seniors on Medicare, like my mother, should see no changes to the program, future generations should be transitioned into a premium support system. A premium support model will empower seniors with choice and market competition just like Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D already do.
How innovative. Medicaid block grants and Medicare vouchers. Gee, we've never heard that before. But his ability to rehash all the ideas Republicans have been tossing around for five years means Rubio is, in his own mind, a serious person: "I believe I have the experience and vision necessary to improve our healthcare system and make this the next American century." Somehow, I doubt that he's going to be able to convince anyone of that.