GOP once embraced what it now condemns
ObamaCare may destroy health care in 49 other states, but not here in Georgia, say GOP state senators Judson Hill and Chip Rogers. They plan to stop it dead at the state border.
If Georgians want to buy health insurance, Hill told Fox News last week, they should be allowed to do so. But we “don’t want to be penalized or have it forced upon us” by government, he said. So Hill, Rogers and a handful of other Senate Republicans have proposed a state constitutional amendment to guarantee that Georgians cannot be compelled to buy health insurance.
Furthermore, they believe that under the states’ rights doctrine, such an amendment would make any federal law to the contrary unenforceable here in Georgia.
Of course, Washington doesn’t have a monopoly on Big Government enthusiasts. Just two years ago, legislation was introduced in the Georgia Senate that was eerily similar to what Obama is now proposing in Washington.
For example, the Obama approach calls for creating a centralized government-run insurance exchange, a kind of clearinghouse where insurance companies would sell their products to consumers. Senate Bill 28 would have done the same thing, creating a Georgia Health Insurance Exchange. The exchange would have been the only legal means to sell health insurance to individuals and small businesses.
Like federal legislation, the state bill also tried to force citizens to buy a minimum amount of insurance. In fact, anybody with a gross income of 300 percent above poverty would have to buy health insurance or post a $10,000 bond with the state.
If a citizen refused to comply, the consequences were draconian. The state was empowered to garnish a person’s wages and withhold state income tax refunds until that required $10,000 minimum was achieved.
Now, that sounds like the kind of bill that would absolutely horrify small-government conservatives such as Hill and Rogers. But here’s the strange part: Hill was the bill’s chief sponsor; Rogers a co-sponsor.
At the time, Hill gave Newt Gingrich the credit for a lot of the ideas in SB 28, and for good reason. For example, the former House speaker was a strong advocate of digitizing all medical data and then analyzing that data to determine which treatments and procedures worked best.
In fact, just last year in a New York Times oped piece co-authored with Sen. John Kerry, Gingrich noted that “nearly 100,000 Americans are killed every year by preventable medical errors.”
“Working closely with doctors, the federal government and the private sector should create a new institute for evidence-based medicine,” Kerry and Gingrich argued. “This institute would conduct new studies and systematically review the existing medical literature to help inform our nation’s over-stretched medical providers.”
As the Congressional Budget Office explained, “better information about the costs, risks, and benefits of different treatment options, combined with new incentives reflecting the information, could eventually alter the way in which medicine is practiced and yield lower health care spending without having adverse effects on health. Over the long term, the potential reduction in spending below projected levels could be substantial.”
SB 28 attempted to implement such a program on the state level. It required all insurers, doctors, hospitals, pharmacists and other medical professionals to submit electronic medical data to the state. A new Georgia Patient Safety Corporation would analyze the data “for the purpose of recommending changes in practices and procedures.”
The legislation being considered in Washington closely mirrors the approach advocated by Gingrich and Hill. The House bill creates a “Comparative Effectiveness Research Center” to serve much the same function as the Georgia Patient Safety Corporation. Like the agency envisioned by Hill and Gingrich, its findings would be advisory only.
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit … the Center to mandate coverage, reimbursement, or other policies for any public or private payer,” the bill states.
Unfortunately, the “Comparative Effectiveness Research Center” has since been given a new name by conservatives: “death panel.”
Suddenly, the idea of mining electronic data for insight into cheaper, more effective care has become a conspiracy to control doctors and deny care to the elderly and vulnerable. Gingrich himself now describes comparative effectiveness research as a effort to ration care, complaining that “this one-size-fits-all approach goes against everything modern medicine is learning about the genetics of the human body.”
It’s enough to make you sick.
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317 comments Add your comment
Jake
September 11th, 2009
12:52 pm
doggone – Forcing people to buy insurance is compassionate? Rewarding those that won’t work the same as those that can’t work is compassionate? Not too bright are you?
Call it Like It Is
September 11th, 2009
12:53 pm
Bottom line:
Barry the Racist Socialist is NOT AMERICA’S Answer.
Weak on National Defense!
Running up the Deficit!
DONE ZERO FOR AMERICA!
How ya like that change and yes we can now you morons!
Enough Said!
Jake
September 11th, 2009
12:57 pm
doggone – Rewarding law breakers is compassionate? You must have adored Teddy K the compassionate, lying, drunken, murdering scumbag had lots of reasons to merit your compassion. Spineless entitlement worms like you sicken real Americans.
casual observer
September 11th, 2009
1:09 pm
Make meaningless assertions!
Don’t back anything up!
Call people names!
Take stuff out of context!
Enough said!
Call it Like It Is
September 11th, 2009
1:39 pm
Nothing is taken out of Context as what Jim Wilson said is true just like the above quotes all true.
Wake up!
Enough Said!
GaNative
September 11th, 2009
1:57 pm
To Hell with Insurance Companies and their Health Care Plans. All they do is collect premiums send you correspondence through the mail so that you won’t reply because who the Phuch reads snail mail anymore, then drop your coverage? After today, I’m all for Obama’s Health Care Plan, it certainly has to be better than the BULLSHID United HealthCare is providing. They send you mail notices about your college aged children wanting proof of eligibility. But they send it during the summer when school is out and who reads snail mail? Why can’t they get their act together and send me a text message on my cellphone or an email alert just like the bank does? So today my daughter had a fever, went to the University’s Hospital, ran up a $200 bill and presents her insurance card only to find out that United Health Care has dropped coverage on her. I hope President Obama fleece that cash cow that United Health Care has going on. Insurance companies are among the most profitable companies in America and the health care industry is the only viable industry for employment, so why can’t they move up to the age of technology on corresponding with their policy holders?
GaNative
September 11th, 2009
2:12 pm
Excuse my typo… I meant “who the PHUCK reads snail mail anymore”?
Steve
September 11th, 2009
5:01 pm
What makes me sick is the Dem have the house and 60 Senators and the only thing they know how to do is attack Rep. If this is such a good idea seems like getting 60 Dems in the Senate would be a no brainer.
The American people are going to hold the Dem responsible for whatever happens so blaming the Rep is not going to work.
Bozo the clown
September 11th, 2009
5:16 pm
Four young women flash on I-75 and eleven rednecks call the cops. Somethings wrong with you people.
Terry
September 11th, 2009
7:31 pm
I think the debate comes from 2 angles. Those who think health care in 2009 is a right and those who think health care in 2009 is a priviledge. I’m not sure it’s a right but I do know it’s defintely not a priviledge, not in this day of advanced medical tech. I have lived in several European countries during my career and in all of them, they have a national health type service. Private insurance is also available for those who feel they must have it. These national plans I believe are paid for by a value added tax or VAT tax, that everyone pays whenever they buy anything, good or services. It’s a little like that FairTax although this is just for health care. My personal experience was when I got sick I was usually able to see my doctor on the same day. There was never any week long or months long wait as I have seen many pundits claim on TV. So the concept does work, I’ve experienced it personally; and none of these countries are “on the verge of collapse” due to their health care systems. So what’s the real issue behind all the anger? Americans are afraid they’ll be seen as Socialists? You already are socialists if you participate in Medicare in any way, or have ever taken unemployment money for example. The Europeans all think we are socialist already anyway. No I think it has more to do with the shade of Mr Obama’s skin. I have heard many people who are against this thing express their belief that “whenever blacks run anything, the screw it all up! Just look at Detroit, Atlanta, Washington DC, etc…” I think if the debate was about giving everyone in the country a new flatscreen TV, the detractors would be holding town rallies decrying his plan because he will give better TVs to the black neighborhoods or what’s really going on is the TVs he hands out will only play programs that promote his liberal agenda!
It’s just plain silly; all the name calling and anger. Eventually the detractors will be overwhelmed and there will be a national healthcare system in the USA.Maybe not now , but certainly within our lifetimes. You can’t effectively govern a country when 20-40% of the nation has no healthcare. That’s where we’re headed if nothing is done.
Pete
September 13th, 2009
1:09 am
And why should folks not be compelled to purchase health insurance? If some individuals are not covered by insurance, the taxpayers will pay anyway – and through the nose, when those without insurance are treated in emergency rooms.
Sen. Hill offers a rebuttal to my recent health-care column | Jay Bookman
September 18th, 2009
12:03 pm
[...] mandates AND state legislation imposing health-insurance mandates, has posted a rebuttal to my recent column on the subject at Peach [...]
Judson Hill and a local wrestling match over health care | Political Insider
September 18th, 2009
1:36 pm
[...] Bookman recently pointed out that Hill, one of those state lawmakers who earlier this month declared they would attempt to block any health insurance mandates that flow from Washington, had once backed local legislation to establish a kind of health insurance coop: For example, the Obama approach calls for creating a centralized government-run insurance exchange, a kind of clearinghouse where insurance companies would sell their products to consumers. Senate Bill 28 would have done the same thing, creating a Georgia Health Insurance Exchange. The exchange would have been the only legal means to sell health insurance to individuals and small businesses. [...]
States follow Georgia off the “no mandates” cliff | Cynthia Tucker
September 28th, 2009
1:07 pm
[...] ultra-conservative lawmakers around the country are following Georgia’s lead, determined to challenge the federal government’s right to impose health insurance mandates. [...]
Moe Myers
November 22nd, 2009
2:38 pm
Jay, you’re an idiot.
shadtree
March 29th, 2010
12:12 pm
These senators don’t really want to be in the United States. It does make me sick that we have a chance to get real health care reform and the Republicans are standing in the way.
shadtree
March 29th, 2010
12:13 pm
Moe Myers your an idiot