Centrists need to grow a pair and make clear exactly what they'll need to support the revised bill. The big proposed change - the ability of states to apply for a waiver from community rating - does NOT deprive those with pre-existing conditions from getting coverage. They would merely be insured separately from healthy folks in a risk pool of their own - funded by general tax revenue.
That's a welcome change, since the problem with ObamaCare's community rating regulations has been that healthy people subsidize all the costs of the unhealthy, driving up their premiums to such an extent that many have abandoned the marketplace. Simply put, ObamaCare is for most us a bad deal, saddling us with high deductibles together with high premiums for coverage for costs above those deductibles.
The solution is to place the chronically ill in their own pool, and not force a small portion of the population - those unlucky enough to have no alternative to the individual marketplace - to pay their costs. Something like five percent of participants in the ObamaCare exchanges incur costs equal to the remaining 95%. No wonder the marketplace is failing.
Responsibility for paying for the chronically ill should instead be spread among ALL of us - by means of general tax revenues. Call that socialism for the sick, if you will. But the benefit is lower premiums and more flexible policies for the rest of us.
Let's hope the $8 billion bribe works. As for centrists facing tough reelection battles - man up and defend the risk pools on their merits. The bottom line will be lower premiums for most of their constituents.
