Ryan-Care: Is No Care

Why ‘Ryancare’ Is Far More Hostile To States Rights Than ‘Obamacare’

By Ian Millhiser on Oct 7, 2011 at 2:20 pm

Yesterday, House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) predicted that the Supreme Court will embrace the meritless claim that the Affordable Care Act violates states rights and “knock down the individual mandate.” Yet, if there is one person who shouldn’t be hiding behind states rights arguments, it is Paul Ryan. The truth is that Ryan’s infamous health plan does far more than simply phase out Medicare, it outright declares war on the states’ ability to protect their citizens from insurance company abuses.
One of the centerpieces of Ryan’s plan is an element from the McCain/Palin presidential campaign’s plan that supposedly allows Americans to “purchase health insurance across state lines”:

Currently, individuals and families can purchase health insurance only in the States in which they live, because insurance companies are prohibited from selling polices outside their respective States. Thus the consumer is prevented from purchasing coverage from another State that might offer more suitable, or more affordable, coverage. [...]
Allowing consumers to shop across State lines will balance State regulation of health insurance. Individuals no longer will have to pay for health benefits mandated by their home States that they do not need; they will be able to choose policies from States whose mandates better fit their personal circumstances. States will then have an incentive to balance their insurance mandates against costs to remain competitive with other States.

This sure sounds great! Why shouldn’t you be able to buy a plan from an Arizona insurance company if you happen to live in Ohio? The truth, however, is that the McCain/Palin/Ryan plan’s promise to let people “shop across State lines” is nothing more than a code for completely immunizing the insurance industry from state laws that protect consumers.
As Sen. McCain explained during his failed campaign, the McCain/Palin/Ryan plan is modeled after the process banks used to systematically dismantle state laws protecting consumers from excessive interest rates. Once upon a time, banks were governed by something known as “usury laws,” state laws which prohibited lenders from charging excessive interest to homeowners and other borrowers. In 1978, however, the Supreme Court held that banks are only required to follow the usury laws of the state where they are “located,” effectively immunizing banks from the interest rate caps in each of the other 49 states.
The result was a race to the bottom where states competed to enact the least protective usury laws in order to coax the banking industry into relocating within their borders. Eventually, South Dakota “won” this race by repealing its usury laws altogether, and Citibank rewarded South Dakota by moving its lending offices to that state. The rest of the industry soon followed suit, immunizing itself from interest rate caps altogether by locating in places like South Dakota.
So the effect of this chain of events was to completely neutralize states’ ability to regulate interest rates — hardly the kind of states rights result that 10th Amendment absolutists pine for. And the McCain/Palin/Ryan plan would impose the banking model’s approach to state regulation on health insurance regulation. If the Ryan is successful in enacting this plan, a short list of laws that would effectively cease to exist includes:

• Women’s Health: 49 states and the District of Columbia require health plans to cover reconstructive surgery after breast cancer, mammograms, and maternity stays;
• Fair Appeals: 44 states and the District of Columbia allow patients to appeal denials of coverage to an external review board;
• Preexisting Conditions: 38 states and the District of Columbia restrict how far into the past a insurance company can “look-back” to determine whether a patient is disqualified because of a preexisting condition;
• Healthy Children: 31 states require health plans to cover well child care.

In other words, Ryan’s preeminence as the right’s leading health policymaker does nothing more than prove that they couldn’t care less about states rights and the 10th Amendment. They’re just happen to pretend to care in order to undermine President Obama’s signature accomplishment.

A Letter From Senator Barbara Boxer (CA-D)

Dear Auntie:

Because you had written to me some time ago in support of health care reform, I wanted to follow up and share some good news with you about this important legislation.

I am very pleased that Congress has passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and its accompanying Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act.  These bills were signed into law by President Obama on March 23 and March 30, 2010 respectively. 

This is a historic achievement and a victory for our seniors, our children, our small businesses and for California.

When health care reform takes full effect, up to 7 million uninsured Californians will get access to affordable health care and 400,000 small businesses in our state will get large tax credits when they provide health care to their workers.  More than 4 million California seniors will get free preventive care, and they will also see lower costs for prescription drugs.

All Californians will benefit from consumer protections that will give them the security of knowing they will never be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition or be dropped from their health plan just because they or their family members get sick. 

The reconciliation bill makes a number of improvements and corrections to the original bill, including much greater funding for California's Medicaid program and better support for the doctors and hospitals that treat these patients. 

 

Ever since Teddy Roosevelt first set the goal of affordable health care for all Americans nearly a century ago, presidents and members of Congress of both parties have tried to ensure health care security for all of our families. Finally the moment has come when we will fulfill the promise of quality, affordable health care for the American people.

To find out more about what is contained in this legislation, please follow this link: http://docs.house.gov/energycommerce/SUMMARY.pdf

Again, thank you for writing to me.  Please feel free to contact me again about this or other issues of concern to you.

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

Tell Congress: Affordable Health Care

The next two weeks will decide our nation's health reform! Congress returns to Washington for intense negotiations on what goes in a final health care bill.
I just sent an email to my Senators and Representative with a list of critical must-haves in a final reform bill – insurance coverage that is truly affordable; real reforms that hold insurance companies accountable to customers and taxpayers; and a Patient’s Bill of Rights that, among other things, makes sure my choice of doctors is protected, even if I change insurance plans.
Please take a minute and send your own email through Consumers Union’s website, www.PrescriptionforChange.org. These next few weeks are so important in this historic battle – help make sure our needs are put before the insurance industry’s!

Thank you!

End the Abuse

Sign our Petition to President Obama: Failure to disclose $780,000 in payments to one of the most prominent proponents of your idea of reform undermines the entire debate. Come clean on any other undisclosed use of tax dollars in health care reform. Click here to sign.

Dear Auntie-Nanuuq - For almost the entirety of the health care debate, the Obama Administration has relied on economist Jonathan Gruber to make the public case for its idea of reform - even the most unpopular parts. But as Firedoglake revealed on Friday, the Obama Administration has failed to disclose that it paid the same economist more than $780,000.
Jonathan Gruber's work has been cited by the White House, Members of Congress, and countless media outlets, but not once did the Obama Administration disclose it was paying him more than $780,000 in tax dollars. This is a huge ethical violation that undermines the entirety of health care reform.
Sign our petition to President Obama: come clean on Jonathan Gruber and anyone else receiving public money to push health care reform.
http://action.firedoglake.com/gruber
Once we broke this scandal, The New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, and other publications all said they should have disclosed Gruber's lucrative contracts if they were aware of the conflict of interest. Dozens of Members of Congress cited Gruber's work in their floor speeches. The White House pushed Gruber hundreds of times to the press and on its website.
While Gruber's ethical lapses are his own personal and professional issue, the true problem here is that the White House used Gruber and his research as a seemingly unbiased source in support of its unpopular reforms.
When Obama wanted to tax middle class health care plans, Gruber defends the tax. When Obama to force people to buy private insurance, Gruber defends individual mandate. When Obama does not want public option, Gruber says a public option is not important. When Obama needs to pretend the bill has cost controls, Gruber says it has the greatest cost controls ever.
It is simply not right for the White House to cite Gruber's analysis to illustrate the benefits of the bill they support without disclosing that Gruber is on the government payroll. A biased insider can't be an unbiased outside observer. But that's exactly the approach of the Obama Administration, to the tune of $780,000 in tax dollars.
The Obama Administation's $780,000 "buy-an-economist" scandal threatens to shake the foundation of health care reform. We need to get to the bottom of this.
Sign our petition to Obama: come clean on tax dollars used to pay any other undisclosed contracts.
http://action.firedoglake.com/gruber
We need to do health care reform right. But not telling the truth about reform won't help anyone.
Thanks so much for your support.
Best,
Jane Hamsher
Firedoglake