Republicans Adopt a Health Care Vision

A new congressional resolution explicitly states what an ideal health system should look like: It should take care of sick people.

Introduced by Pete Sessions (R-TX) and cosponsored by Mark Meadows (R-NC) and 17 other House Republicans, the resolution says that states should be given broad authority to reform their own insurance markets, provided that “individuals with pre-existing conditions experience lower premiums, lower out-of-pocket costs and greater accessibility to in-network providers.”

Obamacare has not been kind to people with medical problems. Premiums have doubled and tripled, deductibles are several times higher than typical employer plans, and there has been a race to the bottom on quality and access to care. Half the counties in the country have only one (monopoly) insurer in the individual market. More often than not, the insurer is a Medicaid contractor—offering plans that in some cases are worse than Medicaid.

Democratic candidates in many races are promising to preserve the status quo for people with pre-existing conditions. This is said to be in response to Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare. Yet, some Republicans are now saying the status quo is not good enough.

The resolution lays out a vision of what state reform should aim for. People who pay premiums to employer plans for many years and then become too sick to work should have access to individual health insurance coverage that is similar to group insurance “in price, quality, and access to care, regardless of any pre-existing condition.”