by Scott McKay
…This column will bring to light another Republican bill, the Patient Freedom Act to be rolled out Thursday at the Hudson Institute by its author, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)…
That’s why the GOP needs to be waiting with something to replace Obamacare. “Let it burn” would be a good idea if the Democrats controlled Congress, but the fact that, largely because of Obamacare, the 2010 and 2014 midterm blowouts created Republican majorities in both houses of Congress imposes a larger burden. There is wide agreement in Washington that simply allowing King v. Burwell to trash the subsidies, and mandates along with them, without providing some element of relief to the affected consumers, will make the GOP look heartless and cruel once the media is finished with its work…
The aforementioned Cassidy bill, like the more comprehensive Price bill in the House, would offer a chance to escape the Obamacare trap the GOP shouldn’t be in. Essentially, Cassidy would wipe out all the federal mandates — for insurance coverage, for 30-hour work weeks, for the types of conditions to be covered, and so on — for Americans in states choosing to drop them. Meaning that in the 36 states that refused to set up health care exchanges, and in the 39 states where Republicans control at least one house of the state legislature, the odds are good that at the state level the choice will be made to essentially opt out of Obamacare and craft one’s own solution to health insurance…
Passing Cassidy’s bill, which would also incentivize Americans with a tax credit for commencing a health savings account and instituting a requirement of publication of cash prices for health care procedures to reintroduce consumer price sensitivity as a factor in health care, allows the GOP to escape the coming dilemma of its own voters demanding a “let it burn” approach while the public at large clamors for a bailout. That’s a bad political place for the party to be in, and an unnecessary one…