Aug 16 Thank You, Mr. Newt

Within hours after writing about the Patients' Choice Act and the extra cost of government mandates, former Speaker Newt Gingrich highlights how the government forces people into paying for coverage it doesn't need. Here's the first example that he gives:

One key proposal is to mandate an "essential benefit package" for every private insurance policy sold in the United States. Currently, individuals and employers usually make these coverage decisions. This legislation creates a new federal Health Benefits Advisory Committee that would decide instead. For example, if you are a single male with no children, the legislation still requires you to have maternity benefits and well-baby and well-child care coverage. You don't want or don't need that coverage? Sorry, you have to pay for it anyway.

Let's compare this centralized planning, government-knows-best health insurance policy with Paul Ryan's reply to my question:

2. Shouldn't people, working in concert with their physician, have the option of putting together a customized health insurance policy?

Yes - that's a great idea and just the type of innovative thinking we don't want the federal government to squash. Patients have different needs, and that's exactly why health insurance shouldn't be run by the federal government. The government does not know what is best for patients. Patients and doctors should be able to make decisions together about the types of health plans that best suit their individual needs. That concept is exactly what motivated the Patients' Choice Act. We don't want the federal government taking over these decisions - and we want to show people that there is another way that allows the individual to maintain control over these personal decisions.

If polling was conducted to see which policy's principles were preferred, I'm betting that Paul Ryan's plan would trounce the government-centric plan that Mr. Newt highlights from H.R. 3200.

I've said all along that this isn't about improving health insurance or health care in America, that it's about control freaks in Washington, DC doing their best to control more of our lives.

I've stated before that the qualified health benefits plan was to set the bar just high enough to force people out of their private health insurance and into the public option. This information just verifies that belief.

It's bad that the government is trying to intrude into life like that. Unfortunately, there's more planned intrusion:

Other planned agencies would give the federal government unprecedented and unaccountable control over your healthcare. The so-called Health Choices Administration and the National Health Insurance Exchange would set various standards for all health insurance policies. The president is also pushing for another new agency called the Independent Medicare Advisory Council. Described as a cost-control initiative,it would be made up of five government appointees who would, by determining Medicare reimbursement amounts, in essence decide what would be covered and what would not.

Once they're established, bureaucracies take on a life of their own. They can implement regulations without further legislation being passed. H.R. 3200 is written in such a way as to give regulators the 'freedom' they need to meddle in our lives.

We must also equip individuals with information on healthcare cost and quality. Releasing the Medicare-claims history of doctors and hospitals (with patients' personal information removed) would give Americans more knowledge to choose the most efficient institutions, practitioners and the most effective treatments. Inexplicably, this taxpayer-funded data remain locked away.

Talk about stupid restrictions. Why wouldn't you unlock this information with personal data removed? In my mind, there's only one reason for withholding that information: bureaucrats aren't motivated to help people become wise health care shoppers.

There are lots of great ideas out there that would improve our health care and health insurance systems that aren't included in any of the Democrats' legislation. It's time they explained why they didn't include greater innovation. Their legislation is the vehicle they're using to exert greater government control of our lives. If that's the best that the Democrats can do, I'll join millions of people nationwide in rejecting their 'offer'.

Comments welcome at LFR.