Try this, Rick: “I will repeal the ACA, and allow the market to re-establish a viable healthcare system” Is it really that difficult to understand? — BobMbx on April 2, 2012 at 12:36 PM

Apparently.

Can these candidates just stop with the “government funded health care because we think we care about you BS”. I hate this election cycle. — upinak on April 2, 2012 at 12:37 PM

oh great. get out santorum. you’re a clown. — sbvft contributor on April 2, 2012 at 12:37 PM

Amen and Amen.

As a conservative, it seems to me perfectly legitimate to just say, “Repeal.” It’s not necessarily the role of the federal government to guarantee access to affordable health care for all Americans, even if we as a society agree that such access should be a shared priority.

Great thought, Tina. And nice job on Cavuto tonight.

Under my plan (see my website for more details), Americans will be able to buy health insurance with pre-tax dollars, or continue to receive insurance through their employer.

This does not solve the portability problem. The better solution is to sever the relationship between employers and consumers and provide generous tax credits formerly enjoyed by employers to individuals. That way no one feels chained to the employer for fear they will be uninsured if they choose to branch out.

Buy Danish on April 2, 2012 at 1:55 PM

Actually, that’s exactly what Santorum’s plan attempts to do. Note the highlighted word OR in the above quote (emphasis mine).

IOW, if you’re already getting insurance through your employer, you can continue. But you can also buy insurance without going through your employer, which decouples health insurance and your employer.

You’re not going to force people to stop getting insurance through their employer with any plan that stands a chance of passing. You have to first create an alternative, and then start incentivizing that alternative. But let’s face it, as long as an employer can lure employees by offering better health insurance, some people will be getting health insurance through their employer.

Low-income individuals would get tax credits so they could buy the same kind of health care as other Americans

Whoa, I missed this part on the first read!

If the Federal government subsidizes health insurance premiums in this way, they will stay high go even higher.

Emperor Norton on April 2, 2012 at 12:46 PM

Yeah, that part’s not so great. Though it all depends on how much in the way of a tax credit you’re planning to offer. Too big of a tax credit becomes just a subsidy.

Americans will be able to buy health insurance with pre-tax dollars

No, no, Ricky–if the Federal government subsidizes health insurance premiums in this way, they will stay high.

And, as subsidies go, this one gives the most benefit to people in higher tax brackets. You know, the country club Republicans. The upper middle class saves about 40% on premiums under this plan, while working stiffs save about 15%.

You should stick to talking about social issues, Ricky.

Emperor Norton on April 2, 2012 at 12:39 PM

All Santorum’s plan does is to allow you to buy health insurance directly with your pretax dollars rather than buying health insurance through your employer with your pretax dollars. It’s a definite improvement over the status quo before Obamacare, and a good example of a genuine free-market small-government solution to the high cost of health care.

Granted, it would be better to replace all this health insurance with buying directly from healthcare providers. But I don’t see that happening in anything except an idealized world.

This is a good thing, and gets us closer to that idealized world than we were. In modern American politics, that makes it an almost astoundingly good idea. One that should be praised rather than panned.

Who’s Rick Santorum?

echosyst on April 2, 2012 at 1:48 PM

He WAS the first LOSER for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination.

I am not surprised you have forgotten him. He wasn’t memorable.

he wanted a high deductible low premium plan option. the legislature(dumb liberals) said no

gerrym51 on April 2, 2012 at 1:16 PM

This is one of the many problems with Obamacare.
The way to make insurance work is to get healthy people to buy it. If you have low utilizers but charge high premiums, they won’t buy it. To get the premiums down, you need to increase the deductibles and limit some of the services-for instance, people can pay for their own contraceptives.

Obamacare does the opposite. It requires so many things that the policies are exhorbitant. (Do you think the health insurers had anything to do with drafting those aspects of the bill?) It limits deductibles.

If the government allowed a high deductible catastrophic health insurance (which Obamacare specifically prohibits)-say something like $500 per year for 20 somethings, with premiums allowed to increase for age, that only covered real medical expenses over $5000 (not elective plastic surgery, special policies needed for things like IVF), but had no copays over $5000, would there be a market? I would certainly buy such a product. I’d get it for my kids, too, it they didn’t have other coverage.

Something that allows a high deductible but eliminates copays after that would actually help with almost all the problems in the market. People would pay attention to elective costs because they would have to pay out of pocket-they usually come to under $5000. People wouldn’t have healthcare related bankruptcies-it’s not the $5000 that gets you, it’s the 20% copay for the $250,000 bill for the open heart surgery that led to complications. Does your homeowners insurance have copays after the deductible?

Obamacare doesn’t solve a single problem with the system. It just increases overall costs.

This does not solve the portability problem. The better solution is to sever the relationship between employers and consumers and provide generous tax credits formerly enjoyed by employers to individuals. That way no one feels chained to the employer for fear they will be uninsured if they choose to branch out.

Buy Danish on April 2, 2012 at 1:55 PM

Not only that, but I’ve not seen ONE person in this thread bring up the 800lb gorilla in the room – EMTALA. Do away with that, make it a pure pay-to-play with the Fed as your last backstop (think of you have Uncle Sugar via the IRS garnish you for picking up the bill, of which they are charged a fee-premium to make it an abhorrent option, like 2x cost of public insured or cash pay). That right there is the single biggest way to de-fang all the cost shifting BS like credits, etc, etc. Portability – Good, Interstate Availability – Good, Getting rid of EMTALA, superb.

Show a little more integrity in your headlines. Try, at least.

That’s like saying my new improved plan to reduce the cost of electric cars is to give a $10,000 tax credit to the electric car buyer instead of giving it to the the electric car manufacture.

Something terrible happens to people’s brains when they decide to become politicians.

Great short video. 33 seconds

Under my plan (see my website for more details), Americans will be able to buy health insurance with pre-tax dollars, or continue to receive insurance through their employer.

This does not solve the portability problem. The better solution is to sever the relationship between employers and consumers and provide generous tax credits formerly enjoyed by employers to individuals. That way no one feels chained to the employer for fear they will be uninsured if they choose to branch out.

You said putting more low-income people on private insurance plans will increase premiums. Sounds like you don’t think that’s where they should be. Please explain.

Bitter Clinger on April 2, 2012 at 1:29 PM

You asked how putting more people on plans would push premiums higher, and I answered that question. Nothing more. You’re trying too hard to forecast my beliefs into an answer that had nothing to do with them.

Santorum also advocates health care liability reform to address rising costs caused by frivolous lawsuits.

This crap again? It has been shown time and time again that medical malpractice limits have no impact at all on health care costs. It reduces the cost of insurance to doctors, but there are no savings passed to patients. Texas put in sharp lawsuit award limits several years ago, and our healthcare costs have risen among the fastest in the nation since then.

WHO MINES THE DILITHIUM?

dominigan on April 2, 2012 at 1:23 PM

Re-purposed hologramatical doctors.

Just for the people who don’t understand supply and demand: Subsidizing something increases demand and therefore prices! See eduction for an example.