Progress Illinois

With the Democrats expected to launch a fight over health care reform in full this summer, Republicans are busy readying their own competing proposals. Yesterday, Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Richard Burr (N.C.), and Reps. Paul Ryan (Wisc.), and Devin Nunes (Calif.) unveiled the Patients' Choice Act. Building off the government program implemented by former Gov. Mitt Romney in Massachusetts and the platform outlined by Sen. John McCain during the presidential campaign, the bill would eliminate the tax break employers receive for providing health-insurance benefits to their employees and substitute an individual tax credit for consumers buying insurance in the more heavily regulated private market. 

But another Republican proposal was introduced yesterday as well, with much less attention. Authored by Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent and 10th District Rep. Mark Kirk, the Medical Rights Act "guarantees that private (non-government) health care cannot be denied by government restrictions." On WLS' Don Wade & Roma Morning Show today, Kirk explained the basis for the bill: if the government takes a larger role in the health care system and cuts costs by setting a budget and assigning priorities based on need, he fears "government rationing" could strip patients of the care they need. Listen (full audio here):

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KIRK: One thing we know about government health care is governments always run out of money. And once they run out of money, if they are in charge of your health care, they’ll start denying care to your family and to you. And I want to make sure that doesn’t happen in this country.

This assessment completely ignores a fundamental problem with our current system: denial of care takes place every day. But it's not the government experts and medical professionals deciding collectively whether procedures like elective surgeries can wait a few days -- it's private insurers denying complete coverage to those with preexisting conditions or health risks.

An article last year (subscription required) analyzing the implications of the McCain plan, Health Affairs pointed to recent survey data on people who are less healthy and not provided insurance by an employer. Here's what they found:

One-third of such people buying or looking into nongroup coverage were denied coverage or charged more because of a pre-existing condition. Nearly half found it difficult or impossible to find the coverage they needed, and more than two-thirds found it difficult or impossible to find affordable coverage.

And as Luke Mitchell wrote in his great Harper's piece in February, the reason for this exclusion is simple -- it's how the private insurance companies make money:

The profit in the current system, after all, comes not from acquiring as many customers as possible but rather from creating two classes of possible customers—good risks and bad risks—and avoiding the latter class entirely. As we get better at understanding why people get sick, we will also get better at deciding whether or not to insure them. Ultimately, the entire nation could be reduced to two perfect circles: the people who pay for insurance and don’t need it, and the people who need insurance but can’t pay for it.

Of course, Kirk's bill does nothing to address this injustice in the existing system.