CNN – Chris Jacobs' Writing Archive

This Presidential Candidate Loves Obamacare–But Won’t Sign Up for It

If the 2020 presidential campaign illustrates anything so far, it’s the yawning chasm between Democrats’ rhetoric and their reality. Not only do the party’s presidential candidates not practice what they preach, they seemingly have little shame in failing to do so.

Last Thursday evening, one of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), appeared on CNN for a town hall discussion. During the discussion, Bennet criticized his fellow senator and presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders (I-VT), for his single-payer health-care plan.

Qualifies for Obamacare Subsidy, Yet Won’t Buy a Plan

In his town hall comments, Bennet claimed that “what we would be better off doing in order to get to universal health care quickly is to finish the job we started with” Obamacare. Yet consider this paragraph from Bennet’s op-ed the week previously, in which he outlined health care, and his recent prostate cancer diagnosis, as the reason for announcing his candidacy: “My cancer was treatable because it was detected through preventive care. The $94,000 bill didn’t bankrupt my family because I had insurance through my wife’s employer” (emphasis mine).

Remember: The federal Office of Personnel Management promulgated an arguably illegal rule in October 2013 that makes members of Congress eligible for subsidies for Obamacare coverage. Yet even with access to these illegal subsidies, Bennet has no interest in buying an Obamacare plan. That might be because he knows—as I do by being forced onto an exchange plan—that these Obamacare plans are junk insurance, with high premiums, high deductibles, and in many cases poor access to physician networks.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Some may argue that because Bennet does not support Sanders’s single-payer proposal, at least he will not force others to give up their health coverage (even as he refuses to go on to Obamacare). But in 2009, one analysis of a government-run “public option,” which Bennet supports as an alternative to single-payer, concluded that it would lead to a reduction in private insurance coverage of 119.1 million people. This would shrink the employer-provided insurance market by more than half.

Even Bennet’s “moderate” proposal could lead to many millions of Americans immediately losing the coverage they have if employers drop coverage en masse. Yet will Bennet give up his employer coverage and go on to Obamacare? Not a chance.

Some may question why I write about this topic so often. After all, if every member of Congress, or every Democratic presidential candidate, suddenly decided to sign up for Obamacare, it wouldn’t significantly affect the exchange’s overall premiums and coverage numbers. But lawmakers’ coverage decisions have outsized importance because they reveal their true motivations.

Obama’s action, however, represents the exception that proves the rule. Instead, liberals want to order other people to buy Obamacare health insurance while not doing so themselves. They epitomize Ronald Reagan’s 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” in which he referred to a “little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital,” who believe they “can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

By promising to expand Obamacare even as he fails to enroll in it himself, Bennet demonstrated himself part and parcel of that “little intellectual elite.” So have his fellow Democratic presidential candidates. Americans should take note—and vote accordingly next November.

This post was originally published at The Federalist.

Kamala Harris vs. Hillary Clinton on Benefits to Immigrants

Back in January, jaws dropped when presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) admitted at a CNN town hall that she wanted to take away the existing health arrangements of hundreds of millions of Americans. Now we know one reason why.

In another interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Harris admitted that she wants to provide taxpayer-funded health care, along with education and other benefits, to individuals unlawfully present in this country. But as even Hillary Clinton recognized, doing so wouldn’t just cost precious taxpayer dollars. It will also encourage individuals to migrate to the United States for “free” health care.

In the interview, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Harris about language in Section 102(a) of the House and Senate single-payer bills, which would make health coverage available to all individuals present in the United States, regardless of their legal status. When questioned whether she supported granting benefits “to people who are in this country illegally,” Harris responded unequivocally that she does: “Let me just be very clear about this. I am opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education or public health, period.”

Compare Harris’ response to the words of none other than Hillary Clinton. When testifying before Congress about her health-care task force’s plan in September 1993, Clinton said she opposed extending benefits to “illegal aliens,” because it would encourage additional migration to the United States:

We do not think the comprehensive health care benefits should be extended to those who are undocumented workers and illegal aliens. We do not want to do anything to encourage more illegal immigration into this country. We know now that too many people come in for medical care, as it is. We certainly don’t want them having the same benefits that American citizens are entitled to have.

Clinton may not want illegally present foreign citizens having the same benefits that American citizens would be entitled to under single payer, but Harris does.

The problems sparked by single payer would reach far beyond undocumented foreigners living in this country. To wit, both the House and Senate single-payer bills prohibit individuals from traveling “for the sole purpose of obtaining health care” from the new government-run system. But note the specific wording: It only prohibits foreign citizens from traveling for the sole purpose of receiving health care.

This extremely permissive language would give federal officials fits. So long as anyone states some other purpose—visiting the U.S. Capitol, for instance, or seeing a Broadway play—for his or her visit, the language in the bills would make it impossible to deny these foreign citizens health care funded by U.S. taxpayers.

Provisions like these would not just cost American taxpayer dollars, it would also cost the U.S. health-care system. Growth in benefit tourism would greatly increase demand for health care (as would many other provisions in a single-payer system). Because of this greater demand, American citizens would have an increasingly difficult time accessing care. Foreign residents may not like waiting for care either, but individuals from developing countries lacking access to advanced health treatments might find queues for care in this country far preferable to no care at all in their native land.

Don’t Insult Americans’ Intelligence

In the same CNN interview that aired Sunday, Harris also tried, albeit unconvincingly, to “clean up” her January comments about “mov[ing] on” from private insurance. She claimed to Tapper that single-payer legislation would not fully eliminate private insurance. However, host Tapper rightly pointed out that supplemental insurance could only cover the very few services that the government-run plan would not, like cosmetic surgery.

Tapper also asked Harris about the unions that have health plans that they like now, not least because they gave up pay raises in prior years to keep rich health benefits. Harris could only concede that “it’s a legitimate concern which must be addressed.” I’m sure that those individuals facing the loss of their health coverage feel better, because Harris has officially dubbed their concern “legitimate.”

Note to Harris: Legal hair-splitting about whether single payer bars all health insurance, or just virtually all health insurance, and patronizing constituents fearful of losing their coverage, doesn’t seem like the best way to win support for a government takeover of health care. Perhaps next time she gives an interview with Tapper, she will finally have an answer for why she wants to give benefits to individuals unlawfully present, while taking coverage away from nearly 300 million Americans.

This post was originally published at The Federalist.

This New Democratic Plan Would Ban Private Medicine

A few months ago, Sen. Kamala Harris raised eyebrows when she nonchalantly proclaimed her desire to abolish private health insurance: “Let’s move on.” Today, Ms. Harris’s quip seems quaint. The latest liberal policy idea would effectively end all private health care for many Americans.

The proposal, the Medicare for America Act, first appeared as a 2018 paper by the Center for American Progress. It was a plan to expand government-run health care. It’s been called “the Democratic establishment’s alternative” to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s single-payer scheme. In March, Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke endorsed Medicare for America in lieu of the Sanders plan.

CNN declared that Mr. O’Rourke’s endorsement of Medicare for America demonstrates his “moderate path,” but the bill is anything but moderate. When Rep. Rosa DeLauro reintroduced Medicare for America legislation on May 1, she included a new, radical provision. The revised bill prohibits any medical provider “from entering into a private contract with an individual enrolled under Medicare for America for any item or service coverable under Medicare for America.” Essentially, this would bar program enrollees from paying for health care using their own money.

Liberals might claim this prohibition is more innocuous than it sounds, because Americans can still use private insurance under Medicare for America in some circumstances. But the legislation squeezes out the private insurance market in short order.

For starters, the law would automatically enroll babies in the new government program at birth. The Center for American Progress’s original paper admitted that the auto-enrollment language would ensure the government-run plan “would continue to grow in enrollment over time.” The bill would permit people to opt out of the government program only if they have “qualified health coverage” from an employer. And even employer-provided health insurance would soon disappear.

Under the bill, employees would be able to enroll in the government program without penalty, but their employers would have to pay a fee as soon as even one employee opts into the government insurance. It makes little sense to keep paying to provide private health coverage if you already have to pay for the public option. Small employers would get to choose between paying nothing for health care or shelling out enough for “qualified health coverage.” The migration of workers and firms into Medicare for America would be a flood more than a trickle, creating a de facto single-payer system.

With everyone enrolled in Medicare for America, truly private health care would cease to exist. You could obtain heavily regulated coverage from private insurers, similar to the Medicare Advantage plans currently available to seniors. But going to a doctor and paying $50 or $100 cash for a visit? That would be illegal.

Doctors would no longer be permitted to treat patients without the involvement of government bureaucrats. The thousands of direct primary-care physicians currently operating on a “cash and carry” basis would either have to change their business model entirely and join the government program or disappear.

Medicare for America is unique in this particular provision. Under current law, seniors in Medicare can privately contract with physicians, albeit with significant restrictions. Doctors who see Medicare patients privately must agree not to charge any patients through Medicare for two years. The House and Senate single-payer bills, while banning private health insurance entirely, would retain something approaching these current restrictions for people seeking private health care.

Rather than empowering Americans to get the health care they want, Democrats are intent on forcing them to buy what liberals say is best. They would give the government massive power over medicine—but patients would have none of their own.

This post was originally published in The Wall Street Journal.

Kamala Harris Discovers Liberals’ New Health Care Motto

More than a decade ago, Barack Obama ran for president repeatedly pledging that under his health care platform, “If you like your plan, you can keep it.” Of course, that promise turned out not to be true—millions of Americans received cancellation notices as Obamacare took effect, and PolitiFact named Obama’s campaign pledge its “Lie of the Year.”

Given that tortured history, liberals appear to have come up with a simple and succinct slogan to explain their next round of health “reform:”: “If you like your current plan, go f— yourself.”

Medicare for None

Moderator Jake Tapper claimed during the discussion that Harris supports “Medicare for All,” but in reality, the legislation she co-sponsored during the last Congress would eliminate Medicare, along with every other existing form of health insurance save two: the Indian Health Service and Veterans Administration coverage. In short, Harris supports nearly 300 million Americans losing their current form of health coverage.

Patronizing Paternalism

Just as telling: Harris’ blithe dismissal of Americans who might prefer to keep their existing insurance. She claimed that, under single payer, “You don’t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork.” Never mind that single payer systems have long waiting lists, which bring paperwork of their own. Harris then brushed away Americans’ concerns about losing their health coverage with a flick of the wrist: “Let’s move on.”

There are a number of Americans—fewer than 5 percent of Americans—who’ve got cut-rate plans that don’t offer real financial protection in the event of a serious illness or an accident. Remember, before the Affordable Care Act, these bad-apple insurers had free rein every single year to limit the care that you received, or use minor preexisting conditions to jack up your premiums or bill you into bankruptcy. So a lot of people thought they were buying coverage, and it turned out not to be so good.

Obama minimized both the number of people with cancelled plans—“only” a few million—and the quality of the coverage they held. The message was clear: You may think you had good health coverage, but I know better.

It’s Not About Health Care

Some people wonder why I continue to write about the well-heeled Obamacare supporters—including heads of exchanges—who refuse to buy Obamacare coverage for themselves. For a very simple reason: Those individuals, and Harris, and Obama’s remarks all get at the very same point. Obamacare, and single-payer coverage, aren’t really about health care—they’re about power.

Liberal elites consider themselves intellectually superior to the great unwashed masses, whom they must protect from themselves. That reasoning motivates Obamacare’s “consumer protections,” which act to prevent people from becoming consumers, because liberals don’t want individuals to buy health plans lacking all the features they consider “essential.”

An Ironic Campaign Start

The day before her CNN town hall, Harris launched her campaign in Oakland. At the event, which included her campaign slogan, “For the People,” Harris claimed she will “treat all people with dignity and respect.” In making those comments, Harris likely wanted to contrast herself with President Trump’s tone—his temperament, tweets, and so forth.

But one can make an equally compelling argument that Harris’ platform, and her comments one day later, belied her own rhetoric. Pledging to terminate the health coverage of nearly 300 million people might strike some as treating the American people with a distinct lack of respect.

While Democrats may want to make the 2020 campaign a referendum on Trump, elections also present voters with choices. If their party nominates a candidate who reprises liberals’ past mistakes of talking down to voters—“deplorables,” anyone?—they might face a second straight election night shocker.

This post was originally published at The Federalist.

Top Ten Reasons Senate Health Bill is Fake Repeal

A PDF version of this document can be found at the Texas Public Policy Foundation website.

Retains Obamacare Insurance Subsides. The bill modifies, but does not repeal, Obamacare’s system of insurance subsidies—an expansion of the welfare state, administered through the tax code.
Retains Obamacare Medicaid Expansion. The bill as written would never repeal Obamacare’s massive expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied adults, while it would not fully eliminate the enhanced match states currently receive to cover those adults until 2024—nearly seven years from now.
Expands Obamacare Insurance Subsidies. Rather than repealing all of the law “root and branch,” as Sen. McConnell claimed was his goal, the bill instead expands Obamacare’s subsidy regime—eliminating the law’s so-called “family glitch” and expanding eligibility for subsidies. Some conservatives may question the need to “fix” Obamacare, when the legislation should repeal Obamacare.
Retains ALL Obamacare Regulations. While modifying some and allowing states to waive others, the bill does not repeal any of Obamacare’s onerous insurance regulations—the prime drivers of the premium spikes that have seen rates more than double since Obamacare went into effect.
Retains Obamacare’s Undermining of State Sovereignty. Because the bill keeps in place the federal mandates associated with Obamacare, states must ask permission to opt-out of just some parts of Obamacare, which remains the default standard. This turning of federalism on its head will allow Democratic Governors—and/or a future Democratic Administration—to reinstitute Obamacare mandates quickly and easily.
Appropriates Obamacare Cost-Sharing Reductions. Unlike Obamacare itself, the bill actually spends federal tax dollars on cost-sharing reductions authorized, but not appropriated, under the law. While conservatives might support a temporary appropriation to ensure a stable transition as Obamacare is fully repealed, the bill does the former—but certainly not the latter.
Extends and Expands Obamacare’s Corporate Welfare Bailouts. The bill includes not one, but two, separate “stability funds” designed to make slush fund payments to insurance companies. Between now and 2021, the bill would spend at least $65 billion on such payments—over and above the cost-sharing reduction subsidies listed above.
Includes Obamacare’s Work Disincentives. The Congressional Budget Office previously estimated that the subsidy “cliffs” included in Obamacare would discourage work—because individuals could lose thousands of dollars in subsidies by gaining one additional dollar of income—and that the law would reduce the labor supply by the equivalent of over two million jobs. The Senate bill retains those subsidy “cliffs.”
Continues Obamacare Pattern of Giving Too Much Authority to Federal Bureaucrats. The bill gives near-blanket authority to the Administration on several fronts—from creating the “stability funds” to giving Medicaid incentives to states—that would allow federal bureaucrats to abuse this excessive grant of power.
Obamacare Architect Admits It’s Not Repeal. Speaking on CNN Thursday, famed Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said that “this is no longer an Obamacare repeal bill—that’s good.” He continued: “If you look at what’s criticized [about] Obamacare, it was subsidies, it was regulations…this law wouldn’t really change those…It really [doesn’t] change very much.” Those admissions come from an individual who received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Obama Administration to consult on Obamacare.

Gov. Jindal Op-Ed: The “Stupid Party,” Revisited

Nearly two years ago, after Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign went down to defeat, I gave some ideas in these pages on CNN about how Republicans can win future elections. On that list was an instruction that Republicans need to stop being the “stupid party.”

While it is true that we as Republicans need to do a better job articulating our principles and being the party of bold new ideas, the Democrats have a far worse problem. Democrats need to stop being the party that thinks Americans themselves are stupid.

To take one example: At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in April, members asked Treasury official Mark Iwry if the Obama administration believed it could delay Obamacare’s individual mandate, much as the Treasury delayed the employer mandate.

Iwry’s response was stunning: “If we believe it is fair to individuals to keep that (individual mandate) in place because it protects them…then we don’t reach the question (of) whether we have legal authority.”

The level of sheer arrogance in that response boggles the mind. A Treasury spokesman later publicly disclosed the Obama administration’s official position: The federal government, namely the IRS, is requiring all individuals to purchase insurance to “protect” the American people from themselves.

Lest anyone think this attitude comes from anywhere other than the very top of the Obama administration, take the President’s own comments last October. In a speech in Boston at the peak of the controversy surrounding insurance cancellations, the President repeatedly derided canceled plans as “substandard…cut-rate plans that don’t offer real financial protection.” And he didn’t just insult the plans themselves, he insulted the people who purchased them: “A lot of people thought they were buying coverage, and it turned out to be not so good.”

In other words, if you like your current plan, you’re delusional—or a dimwit.

The President soon backtracked, and unilaterally waived portions of the bill he signed into law, allowing some individuals to keep their plans, temporarily. But while the President expressed regret for having engaged in what Politifact dubbed the “Lie of the Year,” he has not once apologized for the arrogant and patronizing attitude underpinning the entire controversy—one in which the President believes that he and his bureaucrats know better than everyday Americans.

Sadly, this attitude does not just pervade Washington liberals; it’s also right at home in my state of Louisiana.

In 2012, the executive director of a state teachers’ union claimed that school scholarship programs wouldn’t work, because low-income parents could not make decisions about their children’s education, saying they “have no clue.”

These comments perfectly illustrate the left’s double standards. Both President Barack Obama and Eric Holder—the attorney general who filed suit to impede our scholarship program but lied to Congress about it last month—choose to educate their children at elite Washington schools costing more than $35,000 per year.

But if Americans of more modest financial means—whose annual income may be dwarfed by the tuition fees President Obama easily pays for his daughters—want their children to escape failing schools, or buy the health plan they want, the left exclaims: “Oh no, we can’t let you do that.”

That’s exactly how The Nation magazine reacted to the health care alternative I recently endorsed. Responding to the plan’s new incentives giving individuals more choices and insurance options, its analysts claimed that “most people are not informed well enough (sic) to make the right choices about which plan to buy, what it covers, what it will cost them, and especially how to decide what care to seek.” That’s what The Nation considers an “epic fail:” allowing the “ignorant” American people to pick their own health care options.

I will readily admit that we do need to improve the transparency of health care cost and quality information. And of course in an emergency no patient in cardiac arrest will be able to “comparison shop” for treatment options.

But if The Nation, President Obama, or anyone else on the left thinks the American people are too dumb to pick a school or health plan, they should say so publicly—and in so many words.

Ronald Reagan famously quipped that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

I believe the best way to help is to empower citizens, trusting them to make good choices, not creating nanny states to “protect” individuals from themselves. As a matter of policy, giving Americans choice in schools and health care is simply the right thing to do.

And as a matter of politics, insulting voters’ intelligence is just plain stupid.

This post was originally published at CNN.