You can imagine our delight when the lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal on Monday gave a timely nod to the Consensus Group’s Health Care Choices 20/20 proposal.
Entitled “Can Republicans Regroup on Health Care?” the editorial wonders, “How many elections will the party lose before coming up with a potent political argument on health care?
“For all the Republican successes in Senate and House races, health care continues to haunt the GOP,” as candidates were hammered with millions of dollars in ads about the risk that the Supreme Court could overturn Obamacare and throw millions of people off health insurance in the midst of a pandemic.
“This playbook helped Democrats win the House in 2018, and you can bet they’ll reprise it in the January Senate runoffs in Georgia.”
The editorial welcomes our “center-right” effort and highlights some of the initiatives in our Consensus Group plan, adding we “deserve credit for continuing to push this rock up the hill even without many champions in Congress.”
“The GOP also needs to think bigger than the individual market, which is not where most Americans are insured,” the Journal writes, highlighting a few features of our plan:
“Federal rules permit tax-preferred health-savings accounts to be paired only with plans that have a high deductible. Why not allow more Americans to control more of their own health-care dollars?
“Other good ideas include supporting direct primary care that offers preventive services for a low monthly fee, or improving reimbursement for telemedicine.”
An analysis by the Center for Health & Economy found that the Choices plan would lower premiums by up to 24%, cover nearly 4 million more people through private coverage, and improve access to medical providers by 8%.
The Choices plan is a bottom-up proposal, one hammered out over many months among the best minds in health care from across the country with more than 80 signatories, and the list grows all the time.
Whatever happens with the election outcome, the dozens of recommendations in our plan can be used to advance choice and competition in health care, even if it means initially moving smaller packages in a divided government.
As you know, we just will not give up the fight for health freedom and for Heath Care Choices 20/20, a Vision for the Future.
