Rep. Aaron Schock isn't too excited about the idea of the government
providing affordable health insurance (the so-called "public option").
And like his Republican colleagues in the House,
he's doing everything he can to stir up opposition to the idea.
Unfortunately, Schock is also leaving out some facts along the way.
For instance, on WLS' Don Wade and Roma this morning, the
Peoria congressman suggested that under proposals favored by the
Democrats, there will be strong incentives for employers to drop
private coverage for its workforce, which will dramatically increase
the price of the public plan. Listen (full audio here):
Internal mp3
SCHOCK: What [Americans] don’t want is a one-size fits all, cookie-cutter
approach to insurance and to coverage. And the president tries to appease
them by saying – because overall the majority of Americans are happy
with their health care – the president starts by saying, “If you like your health care plan, you can
keep it. Now for the rest of you that don’t have it, let me talk to
you.” And there’s the big asterisk because what the whole plan is
predicated on is a catch-all system, a federal system for those who
don’t have health insurance paid for by those who do have health
insurance and those who pay your taxes. The problem is is that what it
says is if you are an employer and you provide an employee-provided
health care plan, you will be taxed -- you no longer will be able to
write off the deductibility of your health care plan. And what will
happen is, in very swift order, if you have a catch-all system for those
that aren’t insured, and you then punish those people who are insured, you'll
have in very swift order: move people who are insured, and employers
saying we’re going to make responsible decisions, we’re going to cover
our folks with a health care plan, drop them. And people will then be
forced to go onto the one-size government plan in very short order. And the Democrat’s own estimate on what this is going to cost is going to skyrocket.
Schock's concerns can be traced back to the Congressional Budget Office's scoring
of an early version of the Senate's health care reform bill in the middle
of June. The office estimated that employers would stop providing
coverage to 15 million employees. Those Americans would in turn be able to access the "Health Insurance
Exchange" -- with the help of government subsidies -- to purchase individual health insurance. As a result, costs were much higher and
coverage much lower than the Democrats had hoped. The CBO estimated
that the government would spend $1 trillion over 10 years, only to see
16 million additional people gain health insurance.
But the June CBO estimate left out one crucial detail: an employer mandate.
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