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Republicans offer….the Clinton health care plan?

November 11, 2009 — A few weeks ago, I wrote a column chiding Republicans for not having a health care plan.  Well now they're starting to offer something…and it looks a lot like Clinton's health care initiatives of the 1990s.

Wait…how is it possible, you might wonder.  Wasn't the Clinton health care plan some kind of government takeover of health care?  At least that's what conservative pundits like William Kristol and interest group lobbies like HIAA led us to believe with their "Harry and Louise" ads.  Some ideas attributed to Clinton were actually devised by Congressional Democrats like Jim McDermott and Fortney "Pete" Stark, who offered liberal rivals to Clinton's plan.  But that oversimplification is leading the GOP down the same path, to support something they once worked to kill.

In a November 2 article written by David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapers, House Minority Leader John Boehner listed "four key principles," which include "giving states more flexibility to 'create their own innovative reforms,' …revamping medical malpractice laws…permitting families and businesses to buy health insurance across state lines…[and] making it easier for employers, individuals and small businesses to set up risk pools."

Michigan Republican Rep Thad McCotter also added his two cents in an op-ed piece.  It reinforces Boehner's plans, and adds "…ending exclusions for pre-existing conditions… providing tax credits for purchasing private health insurance; allowing association health plans….incentivizing preventative health care; and applying information technology to enhance transparency and increase efficiencies."

A lot of these Republican ideas resemble Clinton's campaign speech at Merck in 1992, where "All Americans would be insured by large, regional purchasing cooperatives run by insurance companies. The costs would be picked up by the nation's employers. Also, the nation's malpractice system would be reformed to limit the possibility of frivolous lawsuits."

How about that idea giving states more flexibility for reform?  Kant Patel and Mark E. Rushefsky note in their 1999 book "Health Care: Politics and Policy in America" how "President Clinton ordered the federal government to make it easier for states to use Medicaid funds to introduce new health care programs." 

Parts of McCotter's "patient-centered wellness" remind me of President Clinton's "Patients' Bill of Rights."  And the Clinton Administration was also a key supporter of medical technology for cost savings, too.

Ironically, when Republicans attempted to introduce the measure, based upon medical liability reform, it was defeated by the House of Representatives 258-176 on the grounds that “it would insure only 3 million Americans, versus the 36 million helped by their [Democratic Party] measure.”  That vote was a warm-up for the passage of the Democratic bill late Saturday night. Few of the Republicans probably even looked at their bill, much less realized how close it was to Clinton’s vision in 1992.