Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works by Rick Santorum

Author:Rick Santorum [Santorum, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621572411
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2014-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Having asserted control over practically every aspect of healthcare in America, the Obama administration should be held responsible for the shameful results we’ve already seen—and for the worse that is to come. But the president continues to make excuses for the Obamacare debacle. He blames Republicans, suggesting that we have proposed no alternative, that we’re denying the very real problems that afflicted the healthcare system before Obamacare. That’s simply not accurate.

In 1992, when I was a freshman congressman, John Kasich and I introduced the first health savings account bill. HSAs put consumers in charge of their routine care and gave them the incentive to be wise purchasers of services. If you spend your money and time to stay healthy, you receive the financial benefit, not the insurance company. Although the idea has never been fully implemented in Washington, in states that have passed it, costs have gone down, and satisfaction up. When this patient-centered approach has been tried with Medicaid recipients, whom the Left believes are incapable of making wise healthcare choices, the results have been encouraging.

One of the key problems with Obamacare is that it doubles down on the idea that Washington can impose a one-size-fits-all solution in healthcare. The reality is that states have developed the most effective healthcare policies. The demographics of the uninsured and the conditions affecting healthcare costs and access are simply different in South Carolina than in New York or Colorado or Alaska. And because of their different political climates and cultures, the citizens of those states are likely to respond to different incentives and develop different approaches. This fundamental truth is why I support changing the current Medicaid program to more of a block-grant system that would provide states much more flexibility than they have today to design innovative programs to address the problems of the uninsured.

We can also help our fellow citizens burdened with preexisting conditions without disrupting the insurance market for the vast majority of those who are happy with their current plan. “High-risk pools” are programs that provide a mechanism for extending coverage to those facing these chronic health conditions. The traditional problem with state high-risk pools, however, is that the premiums are unaffordable. Furthermore, these pools usually provide only an insurance card, with no education or guidance to patients on how best to take care of themselves to achieve better health and a longer, more fruitful life. Another way to help the uninsurable is to provide states the opportunity to access federal funds in addition to their Medicaid block grant to create state-based programs. For a state’s program to qualify, it would have to meet a limited set of criteria designed to maximize state flexibility, while addressing the problems of high premiums and education and ensuring accountability to patients and taxpayers:

1.Provide at least one avenue for those with preexisting conditions to obtain insurance coverage at no more than 125 percent of the average price for individual health insurance in the state;

2.Include in the coverage plan for this population a meaningful education and care management component; and

3.

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