Free Market Health Care Reform Resources

Here are some excellent resources for use in discussing the health care reform. If you are a legislator wanting to hold your own health care town halls or craft legislation or write a learned article on the issue, these resources are a great place to start.

These are links to free-market solutions that are miles away from President Obama’s command and control style health care reform approach.

Pacific Research Institute: http://health.pacificresearch.org/

The Heritage Foundation: http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/

CATO Institute: http://www.cato.org/health-welfare-entitlements

Republican Study Committee: http://rsc.tomprice.house.gov/UploadedFiles/RSC_Health_Care_Bills_Compilation--Oct2009--FINAL.doc

The Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) ideas are of particular interest because it shows there has been real reform legislation submitted by Republicans in congress, but the Democratic leadership will not show these bills the light of day.

Some highlights from the RSC group’s legislation:

A bill to reduce the number of mandated benefits: H.R. 109 (Fortenberry, R-NE). One important contributing factor in the high costs of health care are the many congressionally-mandated benefits on health plans. These benefits drive up the costs for all of us even though many consumers may not need a number of the benefits congress has decided should be offered.

This bill would permit insurance companies to offer policies with fewer mandated benefits, called “health benefit plans”. This bill aims at people who do not have health insurance provided by their company or the government and allow them to buy this low-cost alternative. This is the right idea and really should be more wide-spread than this bill would allow for.

A bill to allow health care costs to be tax deductible: H.R. 198 (Stearns, R-FL). This is an other great bill that would allow individuals to deduct from their gross income the cost of health insurance premiums and unreimbursed prescription drug expenses paid for by the taxpayer.

A bill that would allow anyone to buy a health plan based in any state: H.R. 3217 (Shadegg, R-AZ). This bill would allow anyone to purchase health insurance licensed in other states. This interstate shopping is crucial in bringing more competition – and lower costs for consumers – to our nation’s health care industry. According to this document, The National Center for Policy Analysis points out that “a healthy 25-year-old male could purchase a basic health insurance policy in Kentucky for $960 a year. That same policy in New Jersey, however, would cost $5,880 a year.”

These are just highlights of the many bills put forward by the RSC. Each of the bills noted above, and all of them listed in the link have not been considered by Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat majority either in committee or on the House floor. So much for competition of ideas.

And so much for President Obama’s promise to work with both parties in coming up with solutions to make health care more affordable.