Washington Post editorial against Ed Gillespie: A health-care plan worse than Obamacare

REPUBLICANS CALLING for repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, are a dime a dozen. Fewer offer a plan to replace the law with something they claim would work better. To his credit, Virginia’s Ed Gillespie, a GOP Senate candidate, is in the more select group. Meanwhile, his Democratic opponent, Sen. Mark Warner, favors tweaking the law without upsetting its framework.

Mr. Gillespie’s proposal was developed by a conservative group called the 2017 Project, which, as the name implies, aims to provide templates for Republican policymaking after the next presidential election. It is a real plan, which is to be commended. But it would be worse than the Affordable Care Act.

The proposal aims to reduce government spending on health care for the young and middle-aged. Much of what it does allow would pay for tax credits to help people buy health insurance. Everyone — lower-, middle- and upper-class — of a certain age group would get the same amount of help, even if some wouldn’t need it to pay premiums and others would struggle to make premium payments of any kind without assistance. The 2017 proposal insists that this system is fairer, lacking Obamacare’s “obsession with income.”

By cutting overall spending and diverting subsidy dollars toward those who need them less, the plan leaves itself with relatively little for the most vulnerable, who would not be able to afford any more than a bare-bones “catastrophic” plan. For a while, they could finance out-of-pocket costs with extra money the government would deposit in health spending accounts, but that would only be a one-time credit.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ed-gillespies-health-care-plan-would-be-worse-than-the-affordable-care-act/2014/10/17/b6dd9360-54b5-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html