BenefitsAll

Paul Ryan's Elitist Health Care Plan May Have Some Appeal

June 30, 2016

Paul Ryan and the Republicans in the House have taken a beating in the media for their impotent Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) alternative. The criticism is warranted. After so many years of promising to produce an alternative to Obamacare, the best the Republicans can provide is an outline of a policy. Yet there is learn a lot we can learn from Ryan’s proposal. We can learn about Ryan’s personal views on life and health.

Paul Ryan’s Obamacare alternative was written from the perspective of a healthy and fit person who expects to stay that way.

  • If you are really sick and traditional health insurance companies don’t want to insure you, Ryan’s sympathy is with the health insurer.
  • If you have a serious health condition requiring lots of medical care, healthy people should not have to subsidize your health care expenses. You should be forced to maintain continuous coverage, at a higher rate, with other seriously ill people.
  • If you are currently active and healthy, you should have a policy tailored to your individual health. If you want a skimpy health plan, you can have it.
  • If you are currently healthy, you should receive tax credits (or portable payments) that you can save until you need it or use it to pay for dental or vision care.
  • If you can afford to set aside thousands of dollars to pay your medical expenses, you should be able to do so with tax-free dollars.
There’s no denying that Paul Ryan is a health and wellness elitist. He has no empathy for people who are ill through no fault of their own. He thinks health status is a lifestyle choice, just as he thinks poverty is a lifestyle choice. Health status is a lifestyle choice for some, but certainly not everyone. Ryan can’t see beyond his face in the mirror to draft a national health care policy that addresses the diversity and complexity of the American health care system.

Buuuuut… If you are healthy like Paul Ryan, it’s not hard to find his Obamacare alternative plan appealing.

Seriously, why can’t health insurers tailor premiums to an individual’s expected health care costs? There must be an algorithm that can do that. And why can’t healthy people purchase one of these policies? No one wants to pay more into a system that keeps increasing costs because it can. And no wants to pay more than their share…

Also, Ryan’s health care proposal certainly lacks meat but it does have an important component that Obamacare does not and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, is not advocating. The Ryan plan provides financial help to everyone that purchases health insurance. If health care is a right that everyone is entitled to, everyone should receive a health care subsidy. Under Obamacare millions of people have to pay the full premium for health insurance and if you are young and/or healthy, that can sting. And as far as addressing concerns about giving subsidies to the rich—you can always recoup health care tax subsidies for the rich with another tax.

I understand why nearly everyone gave Ryan a failing grade on his health care proposal, but healthy people may be willing to give him a pass if that means getting a subsidy.

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