Legal Commentary

GOP Health Insurance Voucher Plan Is Like The Excise Tax

By Big Tent Democrat

Matt Yglesias writes:

I was on the radio yesterday, for example, with a woman who said that the GOP’s Medicare privatization plan would save money by giving people vouchers to buy private insurance. [. . .] [W]hat Ryan’s plan actually does is first privatize/vouchers Medicare, and then “save money” by arbitrarily mandating that the cost of the vouchers have to grow slower than the cost of health care. In other words, with every passing year Ryancare vouchers get smaller and smaller relative to the cost of medicine. That’s just “saving” money by buying less.

(Emphasis supplied.) I am not sure why Yglesias objects to Ryan's plan while supporting the Gruber excise tax in the Senate health bill. Both work in the same way. Both are designed to encourage savings in health care by encouraging people to buy less expensive health insurance. Or, to put it in Yglesias' words - "saving money by buying less." If Ryan limited the vouchers to say insurance plans that cost $8,500 per individual and $23,000 per family, per year, with an inflation adjustment of CPI +1%, would Yglesias agree with the plan? Why not? Wouldn't the effect be the same as the excise tax in the Senate health bill?

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 06, 2010 (boomark / email).