Politics: Divided States of America on Health Care Package

CNN rounds up opinion on both sides of the question of whether it was a milestone or a mistake.

Yahoo! Finance carried this CNBC item rounding up the mixed reactions to the passage yesterday.

Regular readers of this blog know that as well intentioned the idea behind the bill is (help additional people get insurance) I was skeptical about the package because (1) it brings in more Federal level controls (as Prager said, the bigger the government the smaller the citizen), (2) the taxes and fees fall unevenly in what is claimed to benefit all and (3) fails to address a little talked about inequity of the current system which gives a tax benefit to employer based health insurance.

The goal (helping additional people get insurance) could have been accomplished in a less heavy handed way.

What is in the bill? ... the WSJ condensed version.

I give credit where credit is due and blame where blame is due.

President Obama, Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi and those who voted for and support the health reform bill are true believers. They truly believe that expanding the role of government in health care will make things better. Give them credit for playing hard ball politics to get what they want even if a substantial portion of the public thinks its a bad idea.

And I give blame where blame is due, Republican Governor Mitt Romney initiated the Massachusetts reform plan which upon examination has many of the same features of the Obamacare and at the moment does not look to be doing very well. I wonder if he regrets pushing for that program and how he would do it differently if he had to do it over again?

One infuriating aspect of the whole debate is the lie that conservatives don't have a plan. They do.

At Factcheck.org, the three major Republican versions were shown side-by-side with the House and Senate Democratic plans.

And while searching for Republican alternatives, I came across the idea that Bush 43 advocated.

Excerpt:

The President's proposal would replace the current unlimited exclusion available only to those with employer-sponsored coverage with a standard deduction for health insurance (SDHI) available to anyone with health insurance. The standard deduction would be worth up to $15,000 for families and $7,500 for individuals and, like the current exclusion, would apply to both income and payroll taxes.

Would that have helped a lot of people without creating the government entities that will be needed to run the Obamacare health insurance exchanges, insurance rate regulators and administrators to track the employer and individual mandates?

Too bad we won't get to find out if less intrusive plans would have worked.