Newt Gingrich: No GOP health care plan

[compromise]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/newt-gingrich-gop-health-care-plan-95540.html?ml=tb

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday told party chairs and operatives at the Republican National Committee summer meeting that the GOP has “zero” ideas for replacing Obamacare, according to a report.

“I will bet you, for most of you, you go home in the next two weeks when your members of Congress are home, and you look them in the eye and you say, ‘What is your positive replacement for Obamacare?’ They will have zero answer,” Gingrich told the Boston crowd, said the report from CNN.

Gingrich said the party has a “very deep problem” with a culture that promotes negativity.

“We are caught up right now in a culture, and you see it every single day, where as long as we are negative and as long as we are vicious and as long as we can tear down our opponent, we don’t have to learn anything,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich was addressing the Boston meeting with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, during an afternoon workshop titled, “Becoming the Party of Breakout.”
Priebus told CNN he did “not completely” agree with Gingrich’s remarks and brought up health care proposals on Republican leaders’ websites.

Gingrich has said he supports prominent newer members of the party, like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), telling radio host Laura Ingraham earlier this month that the pair makes the establishment of the party “hysterical” because it has “no answers.”


The GOP needs to come up with a free market alternative to Obamacare that involves reducing regulations.

[better-dead-than-fed]

Permitting people to do what they want with their own money is not a problem.

[compromise]

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2011/1/cj31n1-2.pdf
This is a good healthcare plan

[GunnyFreedom]

I actually have a free market alternative to the PPACA that provides at-or-near universal coverage (better coverage than the PPACA!) and it's entirely free-market based. Among other things, it eliminates the government mucking about in healthcare they already did BEFORE Obamacare, and terminates the HMO/INS cartels having government monopoly protection.

[GunnyFreedom]

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2011/1/cj31n1-2.pdf
This is a good healthcare plan

Ehh, a couple good ideas, but mostly just fiddling with the dials and switches that are already there. The HSA is a good first step anyway.

I'm not talking about making healthcare marginally better than it was, I'm talking about actually fixing it. I actually know how to fix healthcare in the US to provide a real free-market solution, that is all but a panacea, and has all kinds of collateral benefits, like a plan to end Social Security because most people will be too wealthy in their retirement to bother with it. :p

[Anti Federalist]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/newt-gingrich-gop-health-care-plan-95540.html?ml=tb


The GOP needs to come up with a free market alternative to Obamacare that involves reducing regulations.

LOL - ObamaCare IS the GOP's healthcare plan.

It was thought up by Heritage Foundation, pushed by Gingrich back in the day and first implemented by Romney.

[nobody's_hero]

Well then Newt, I'm positive that Obamacare sucks. I'm optimistic that it will be so awful no one will want anything to do with it. I'm not negative at all. There's a silver lining to everything.

[roho76]

Remember, growing pains equals, decades of reform until bankruptcy happens.

[Lucille]

Ron introduced some bills which would have solved tons of problems, but they got no cosponsors because the GOP pols hate free enterprise.

ObamneyCare was and still is the GOP health care plan.

[kahless]

LOL - ObamaCare IS the GOP's healthcare plan.

It was thought up by Heritage Foundation, pushed by Gingrich back in the day and first implemented by Romney.

Exactly, including pushing the individual mandate. Gingrich is a snake who cannot be trusted.

[Acala]

The HSA is a good first step anyway.


I respectfully disagree. The LAST thing we want to do is make banks an integral part of the health care system.

The only solution is, as usual, to get government out of the field entirely at every level forever. And that isn't going to happen because the profits to crony-capitalists that flow from government control of healthcare are staggering and they are simply not going to let it go until the last drop of life has been squeezed out of us.

[GunnyFreedom]

I respectfully disagree. The LAST thing we want to do is make banks an integral part of the health care system.

The only solution is, as usual, to get government out of the field entirely at every level forever. And that isn't going to happen because the profits to crony-capitalists that flow from government control of healthcare are staggering and they are simply not going to let it go until the last drop of life has been squeezed out of us.

That CATO plan used banks to prop the HSA's?

Well then forget what I said, there is almost nothing to redeem the CATO plan then.

My plan, however, uses a Roth IRA model for what I call a "Lifeline Savings Account" or LSA. There is no bank backing or anybody backing. It's all your own hard cold tax-free tender.

[Acala]

That CATO plan used banks to prop the HSA's?

Well then forget what I said, there is almost nothing to redeem the CATO plan then.

My plan, however, uses a Roth IRA model for what I call a "Lifeline Savings Account" or LSA. There is no bank backing or anybody backing. It's all your own hard cold tax-free tender.

The HSA plans that I have seen, like Roth IRA models, use banks to manage the accounts. That gives government/banks control over the money. The banks already have their foot in the health care door through the flex spending program, which is basically a pilot project for the HSA. In the flex spending program, the slave elects to have money taken out of his paycheck and placed in the care of a bank. You then submit health care claims to the bank. If the bank approves your claim, they give you some of your money back. If you happen to overestimate your claims, the bank keeps the excess.

[GunnyFreedom]

The HSA plans that I have seen, like Roth IRA models, use banks to manage the accounts. That gives government/banks control over the money. The banks already have their foot in the health care door through the flex spending program, which is basically a pilot project for the HSA. In the flex spending program, the slave elects to have money taken out of his paycheck and placed in the care of a bank. You then submit health care claims to the bank. If the bank approves your claim, they give you some of your money back. If you happen to overestimate your claims, the bank keeps the excess.

I don't think the mere fact of having an account puts banks in control of YOUR money, and flex accounts are no better than HMO's because you lose the money you put in if you don't spend it by a certain date, so as soon as you pay in it's no longer your money at all. I'm talking about a plan that is your money and your money only from end to end.

This plan looks nothing like any HSA plan I've ever seen. It does look a lot like flex accounts, which are as bad as HMO's and if they bear any resemblance to HSA's whatsoever, it is only superficially. These flex accounts that take your money away if you don't spend it, create an artificial motive for healthcare spending that should not exist, therefore keeping prices artificially inflated and continuing along the same path of destroying healthcare in the US.

The mere existence of an account does not imply bankster or third party control. I've never seen any kind of HSA plan that puts the bank in charge of approving or denying healthcare expenses, that would be absurd -- and that even though most HSA plans are less than helpful. Are you sure you aren't mixing up flex spending accounts with HSA accounts?

If anything, a flex account is an attack against HSA's, by making a poison counterfeit to sour everyone on the idea of free market healthcare. Flex accounts are not HSA pilots, flex accounts are attacks to delegitimize HSA's.

[69360]

Why does Obamacare have to be replaces with SOMETHING. The free market isn't good enough?

[GunnyFreedom]

Why does Obamacare have to be replaces with SOMETHING. The free market isn't good enough?

We didn't have a free marked before the PPACA. Simply repealing the PPACA will take us from the impending fascist market only to return us to the former fascist market. If we really want a free market in healthcare it will require a legitimate change to unhook the artificial monopoly power and favored status HMO providers that government was already doing well before the PPACA.

[69360]

We didn't have a free marked before the PPACA. Simply repealing the PPACA will take us from the impending fascist market only to return us to the former fascist market. If we really want a free market in healthcare it will require a legitimate change to unhook the artificial monopoly power and favored status HMO providers that government was already doing well before the PPACA.

That was what I meant. Get rid of it all. 50 years ago you if you were sick, you went to the doctor and paid cash because it was affordable. Nobody had insurance.

[Acala]

I don't think the mere fact of having an account puts banks in control of YOUR money, and flex accounts are no better than HMO's because you lose the money you put in if you don't spend it by a certain date, so as soon as you pay in it's no longer your money at all. I'm talking about a plan that is your money and your money only from end to end.

This plan looks nothing like any HSA plan I've ever seen. It does look a lot like flex accounts, which are as bad as HMO's and if they bear any resemblance to HSA's whatsoever, it is only superficially. These flex accounts that take your money away if you don't spend it, create an artificial motive for healthcare spending that should not exist, therefore keeping prices artificially inflated and continuing along the same path of destroying healthcare in the US.

The mere existence of an account does not imply bankster or third party control. I've never seen any kind of HSA plan that puts the bank in charge of approving or denying healthcare expenses, that would be absurd -- and that even though most HSA plans are less than helpful. Are you sure you aren't mixing up flex spending accounts with HSA accounts?

If anything, a flex account is an attack against HSA's, by making a poison counterfeit to sour everyone on the idea of free market healthcare. Flex accounts are not HSA pilots, flex accounts are attacks to delegitimize HSA's.

As I understand the HSA concept, taxpayers get a tax break for putting money into a special savings account to be used for health care expenses. Right there you know a couple of things. The account is going to be administered by a regulated financial insitution of some type that will report all account activity to the government because the IRS is going to want to know how much is being depositied and is going to demand some kind of assurance that the money is withdrawn only for eligible expenses. So you also know that your access to YOUR money will be filtered through and limited by some kind of screening process administered by that same financial institution and subject to government regulations. Finally, you can be sure that the financial institution that administers your account for you (to protect the government's interest in the tax revenue) is not going to do it for free. They will have the use of the money for investment purposes (gambling) and probably also charge a fee.

If you can explain a system that does not involve these features I might change my mind.

[Acala]

We didn't have a free marked before the PPACA. Simply repealing the PPACA will take us from the impending fascist market only to return us to the former fascist market. If we really want a free market in healthcare it will require a legitimate change to unhook the artificial monopoly power and favored status HMO providers that government was already doing well before the PPACA.

Agree. Killing obamcare just drops us back into the frying pan.