Well, at first it was an outline. Then John Boehner got really mad after it was released and people made fun of him again with the outlines. So now they’ve finished their homework (pdf), now take a good look at Boehnercare:
- No national exchange
- No mandates for employers or for individuals
- Insurance companies still get to exclude people with pre-existing conditions
- No tax credits to help middle class and lower income people to buy insurance
- High-risk pools for states to cover people excluded from insurance coverage are included and some funds are provided. Except lots of states have these and they are expensive.
- Small businesses band together to get lower rates (don’t get me started)
- Limit medical malpractice (but nothing about limiting the damage that medical mistakes can cause to people!)
- Let people buy insurance across state lines — specifically knocking down state laws for consumer protection.
So basically if you don’t have insurance, are afraid you may lose your insurance due to high premium costs, existing conditions or your employer yanks your insurance — Boehnercare does not care about you, or your need for health care insurance. This doesn’t do anything to rein in premium or actual costs. This doesn’t even have the GOP endorsed elimination of the employer tax deduction for employee insurance. But here is an interesting thing to consider about this bill — for all of the whining and wailing these Republicans did about needing a bipartsan bill, one that was done out in the open where everyone was included, a bill that took the best of everyone’s ideas and they did none of that. And as this blog post from Tim Fernholz asks, since the traditional media has latched on to bipartisanship as a measure of the health insurance bill’s success, I wonder when the same traditional media will start holding this repub plan up to their own criteria.