Health Care
Never again worry about losing your health insurance. Everyone should have:
- the “right to be seen” when sick,
- the responsibility to pay for their own medical care if able,
- and the right to fair, continuous coverage at a fair price.
Bob Goodlatte agrees that the health care system is broken and needs fixing. It’s about time! He’s been in office since 1993. Yet when the Republicans led the House for twelve years, Goodlatte: (1) left pre-existing condition exclusions in place; (2) left insurers free from interstate competition; and (3) handed a multi-billion-dollar government subsidy to drug companies without forcing them to offer Americans the same lower prices as in other developed countries.
Jeff Vanke proposes “Rebate Health Coverage,” a uniquely American plan inspired in part by Dutch and Swiss systems of universal coverage with well regulated insurance companies and no public option, and in part by pilot successes in certain U.S. Health Savings Accounts: Permanent, universal coverage. Budget neutral. No public option – no “back door” public option. No rationing panels or counselors. Transparency in prices. Limits on insurance company profits. Interstate markets. Patient choice. Rebate incentives for healthy living and for smart consumption of health care.
No one should be mandated to enroll in a health insurance policy unless that individual seeks and obtains medical coverage without the means to pay for it. Insurers would be required to offer a “basic plan” to all applicants. Partial risk-adjustment payments would occur regularly between insurers, depending on per-patient loads of chronic and catastrophic illness. Low-income patients would contribute to their own insurance and would receive subsidies from an annually adjusted percentage of unsubsidized private health care dollar expenditures, by limiting health insurance company revenues to around 10 percent of premiums. No unfunded Federal mandates on state and local budgets through Medicaid or otherwise.
