What’s Wrong with the Democrats’ New Health Plan?

Democrats in the House of Representatives have put aside grandiose thoughts of Medicare-for-All and single-payer health insurance—at least for a day or two. Instead, they have introduced a new health plan with a more modest goal: making Obamacare work better.

It has three elements:

• Expand health insurance subsidies to everyone. (Individuals are currently ineligible for help if they earn $48,560 or more.)

• Create a national reinsurance pool to subsidize insurance companies that incur high costs.

• Reverse Trump administration regulations that make it easier to obtain limited-benefit insurance.

So, what’s wrong with that? For starters, it uses taxpayer dollars to give money to rich people and insurance companies. It also forces healthy families to buy insurance that doesn’t meet their needs for a price that is artificially high. But the worst feature of the plan is that it doesn’t solve Obamacare’s most important problem: people with chronic health conditions are unable to see the best doctors and enter the best hospitals.

According to Nancy Pelosi, Democrats took back the House because of health care. By one estimate, Democratic candidates spent $90 million on health care ads. And in most cases, the message was simple: people with pre-existing conditions need protection.