What Others Are Saying About Health Care

Amy Sullivan, Time Magazine:

Does Focus on the Family fund abortions? It does if you hold the organization to the same standard it uses to insist that health reform would result in publicly funded abortions.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the fungibility argument that many pro-life groups and politicians have employed to oppose health reform. The problem, they say, is that if any insurance plan that covers abortion is allowed to participate in a public exchange, then premiums paid to that plan in the form of taxpayer-funded subsidies help support that abortion coverage even if individual abortion procedures are paid for out of a separate pool of privately-paid premium dollars . . . .

But are those pro-life organizations holding themselves to the same strict standard? As it happens, Focus on the Family provides its employees health insurance through Principal, an insurance company that covers "abortion services." . . . .

Even if the specific plan Focus uses for its employees doesn't include abortion coverage -- and I'm assuming it doesn't -- the organization and its employees still pay premiums to a company that funds abortions. If health reform proposals have a fungibility problem, then Focus does as well. And if they don't think they do have a fungibility problem, then it would be interesting to hear why they think the set-up proposed in health reform legislation is so untenable. Matthew Yglesias,

Thinkprogress.org:

One of the key differences between the early draft of the House health bill and the Senate Finance draft was the different long-term implications of the financing mechanism. The House bill is financed by taxes on rich people. Since health spending is increasing faster than the overall economy, this meant that even though the House bill was deficit neutral in the 10-year CBO window, by the end of that period expenditures are rising faster than revenues. The Senate Finance bill, by contrast, raises revenue by phasing out the tax exclusion of employer-provided health insurance. Initially it does this by taxing only a small number of "Cadillac" plans, but over time the tax's bite grows and grows. That means you have fiscal sustainability over the long run . . . .

As usual in the health care debate, I think the House is right about everything except this tax point. Getting more aggressive about Medicaid expansion is a great idea. It hasn't attracted the same volume of activist interest as the "public option" issue, but Medicaid is, of course, a public program. And it's an important one. This is good policy.

That said, no matter what you can do in any window, it's still the case that phasing the tax exclusion of employer-provided health care is better policy for the long run. It would, over time, reduce a significant source of economic distortion, reduce overall health cost growth, and improve long-term fiscal sustainability.

Alan Bock, Orange County Register:

When the Obama administration decided to make a health care overhaul the centerpiece of its domestic agenda this year, it hoped that the process would be fairly straightforward and simple; indeed, it assumed a bill would be passed before the beginning of August. For various reasons . . . the process has become extremely messy and convoluted. Meanwhile, many Americans see as higher priorities unemployment and the prospect of a jobless economic "recovery," not to mention figuring out how to handle two wars.

All these factors have led to an air of improvisation that is likely to lead to a final bill almost nobody understands and whose unintended consequences will not become apparent for years. It might be too late for Congress to throw up its hands and return to a less-convoluted task of trying to find ways to reduce health care costs before attempting a wholesale makeover of the system. But that would make sense.

Several options are available. Allowing individuals to claim the same tax benefits corporations get for buying health insurance, and allowing health insurance to be marketed across state lines would be improve portability. Tort reform that puts a cap on malpractice awards would help. Expanding Health Savings Accounts -- high-deductible plans with ample catastrophic coverage and rewards for shopping intelligently -- would help. Reducing mandates so "Chevy" plans as well as "Cadillac" versions are available would increase competition.

Clarence Page, syndicated columnist:

Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor-turned-blogger, cannot see Russia from her house, as Tina Fey's version of her claimed in a "Saturday Night Live" skit. But she is poking this country's politics from her laptop.

I could detect her influence after Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled the long-awaited House health care bill. Within hours, Palin's famously debunked charge of bureaucratic "death panels" was back, polluting the debate . . . .

[J]ust when we might have thought it was safe to talk rationally about end-of-life care, here come those alleged "death panels" again, allegedly "intervening between" families and their loved ones.

In fact, the provisions in question only offer to make funds available at least every five years for seniors and their families to receive end-of-life counseling from their doctors or other health care providers if they want it, no bureaucratic intervention involved.

Fortunately, those provisions remained in the House bill [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi unveiled . . . .Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who sponsored the provision, says the controversy actually may have helped keep the measure alive by raising public awareness. Thank you for that, Sarah Palin. I hope the Senate gets the message.