Tuesday, November 29, 2016

BREAKING Anti-Obamacare Congressman Chosen By Trump For Secretary of Health and Human Services

Jennifer Jacobs at Bloomberg is reporting that Donald Trump has chosen Georgia U.S. Rep. Tom Price for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Price is a major opponent of Obamacare. However, no one should take his opposition to Obamacare and then reach the conclusion that he wants free markets in healthcare.

He has introduced legislation in the House known as The Empowering Patients First Act.

It is a typical technocrat's attempt at tweaking around the edges of current law, rather than taking the wrecking ball to the entire central planning program. For the most part, his plan is just moving pieces around the legislative chess board that will change the entry points of coercion but that is about all.

The one positive in the bill is that it has no individual mandate. In other words, some healthcare freedom will return to individuals especially young workers, who really need only very limited catastrophic coverage. Thus, it will mean that the young won't be squeezed under his plan into high premiums to support elderly, as is the case with Obamacare.

It is downhill from there for the plan, though, with shady gimmicks to make up for the lost central planning revenue of the individual mandate . Ezra Klein noted when Price's plan first came out in 2009 that the plan:
...extend[s] the employer tax deduction to individuals while capping it at "the average value of the national health exclusion for Employer Sponsored Insurance (family/singles) grown at inflation." This amounts to a huge tax increase, incidentally, although Price won't call it that.
Higher taxes. Yeah, great idea.

Bottom line: Price is all about keeping the central planning role of government in healthcare going.

Also of note, Phillip Klein writes that "Price happens to also be close with [general all-around budget scammer]House Speaker Paul Ryan..."

 -RW

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