a takedown
GOP Sen. Ron Johnson rips the Republican health-care bill for simply 'throwing money at the problem'
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is one of five Republican senators who have publicly opposed the GOP Senate health-care bill since its introduction last week, and in an op-ed published Monday in The New York Times, Johnson detailed exactly why he thinks the Better Care Reconciliation Act "fails."
Johnson argued that a plan replacing ObamaCare ought to "bring relief, and better, less expensive care, to millions of working men and women." "Unfortunately, the Senate Republican alternative, unveiled last week, doesn't appear to come close to addressing their plight," Johnson wrote.
Instead, just "like ObamaCare, it relies too heavily on government spending, and ignores the role that the private sector can and should play," Johnson wrote. Rather than embracing the "simple solution" of rolling back "regulations and mandates" that Johnson said he and other senators pushed for, the bill retains the health-care system's characteristic complexity:
We're disappointed that the discussion draft turns its back on this simple solution, and goes with something far too familiar: throwing money at the problem.
The bill's defenders will say it repeals ObamaCare's taxes and reduces Medicaid spending growth. That's true. But it also boosts spending on subsidies, and it leaves in place the pre-existing-condition rules that drive up the cost of insurance for everyone. [Sen. Ron Johnson, via The New York Times]
Johnson proposed returning "flexibility to states, to give individuals the freedom and choice to buy plans they want without ObamaCare's 'reforms'" and building off of "successful models for protecting individuals with pre-existing conditions." "Only then can the market begin to rein in the underlying cost of health care itself and reduce the cost of taxpayer subsidies," Johnson wrote.
Read the op-ed in full at The New York Times.