I spoke to my sister yesterday, and had to counsel her out of a panic about receiving a modest inheritance from my dad - she was afraid if she took the money she wouldn't qualify for her ObamaCare subsidy. Like many, she lost her health insurance when it was outlawed by O-Care, and had to take an O-Care policy that was far more expensive except for the subsidy. But she's on the cusp that if she makes more money, she loses the subsidy.
Here are a few excerpts from this morning's lead editorial in the WSJ about Graham Cassidy:
The bill would devolve ObamaCare funding to the states, which could seek waivers from the feds to experiment within certain regulatory boundaries, and it also repeals the individual and employer mandates and the medical device tax. . . . [A] state that receives a waiver from ObamaCare's regulations must show plans that retain access to "adequate and affordable" coverage with pre-existing conditions. ObamaCare's rules are not the only way to do this, despite the claims of Jimmy Kimmel. The ACA's price restrictions have in practice degraded the quality of care for the ill and sent insurers shopping for healthy patients who are more profitable.
States could set up high risk pools, for example. These pools subsidize care for those who need costly treatment without concealing the expense across healthy patients, who may drop coverage if they can't afford it. . . .
That's the bind my sister is in!
The shame is that many Democrats once liked a federalist solution to health care, and Lilndsay Graham was one of those who worked with them. In 2007, he and Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold proposed the State-Based Health Reform Act that would have given states even more freedom than Graham Cassidy. But these days Democrats fear that state laboratories would discredit the command and control approach to health care that they hope will lead to single payer.
The choice Republicans face isn't between Graham Cassidy or some bipartisan beau ideal. Their choice is to pass their own bill, which now means Graham-Cassidy, or fail again, and cede the health care advantage to the single payer wing of the Democratic Party.
This is our last, best hope, folks. I wish Rand Paul would gain some perspective at what's at stake.