Republicans release their health care plan; it stinks

House Republicans have finally produced their own health care plan, which will be introduced as an amendment to the Democrat’s health care plan sometime this week. It’s about time. Now Americans can finally decide which party’s plan makes more sense for the future of our country.

Here’s the Congressional Budget Office’s summary of its findings on the Republican health care plan:

CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that the amendment would reduce federal deficits by $68 billion over the 2010-2019 period
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[The bill would reduce] the number of nonelderly people without health insurance by about 3 million in 2019 and leaving about 52 million nonelderly. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019—83 percent—would be roughly in line with the current share.
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CBO anticipates that the combination of provisions in the amendment would reduce average private health insurance premiums per enrollee in the United States, relative to what they would be under current law-by 7 percent to 10 percent in the small group market, by 5 percent to 8 percent for individually purchased insurance, and by zero to 3 percent in the large group market.

Well, it appears to meet one of the goals for health care reform; it will reduce our spending on health care per person. As far as extending insurance coverage to all Americans, well, not so much.

Let’s compare that analysis to the CBO’s analysis of the Democratic bill:

According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting H.R. 3962 would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $104 billion over the 2010–2019 period.
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By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 36 million, leaving about 18 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants). Under H.R. 3962, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 96 percent.

That’s actually a bit disappointing, as we’re not quite hitting universal coverage. But the comparison between the two is a no-brainer. The Democratic bill will reduce deficits further and coverage many, many more Americans. Unfortunately, the CBO doesn’t seem to have anything to say about the impacts of the Democrats’ bill on premiums, so we can’t compare on that measure (I’m not sure why; I would think that even if there were no effect, the report would want to discuss that, but I checked through the report and there appears to be nothing).

Now, of course there’s more to the equation than just these few measures. I understand that some Republicans — and by some, I apparently mean every single Republican in both houses of Congress — are opposed to the Democrats’ health care bill on principle, because it would expand the role of government.

Personally, I’m more interested in the results than exactly how we get there. If the CBO could show us that a conservative plan would actually reduce deficits further, cover more people, and reduce individual costs further, I’d be all for it. But we’ve seen what I can only assume is the Republicans’ best attempt — it just doesn’t get the job done.