Sen. Ron Wyden: So Much for Choice and Competition
It is hard to miss the irony in the fact that the very same week that Republicans were publicly heralding Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan to inject market forces into the American health care system, they were crafting a budget deal to strip them from the health reform law. While Free Choice Vouchers didn’t fulfill my vision of a health care system in which every American would be empowered to hire and fire their insurance company, they were a foothold for choice and competition and a safety valve for Americans whose employers are already forcing them to bear more and more of their family’s health insurance costs.
Free Choice Vouchers were a true marriage of both Democratic and Republican ideas and they were killed in last night’s budget agreement. Given the battle it took to get them into the health reform law in the first place, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by their execution.
Under the new health law, Americans whose income falls below 400 percent of the federal poverty level and whose employer-sponsored health insurance premiums are between 8 and 9.8 percent of their total income will be exempt from having to purchase health coverage but will not be able to access the exchanges or qualify for government assistance to buy insurance.
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