GOP Senator Admits His Obamacare Alternative Would Burden The Elderly

BY TARA CULP-RESSLER/Think Progress

At the beginning of this week, three GOP senators unveiled their alternative to Obamacare — a set of conservative policies that would essentially dismantle the health law’s core consumer protections, and give insurers an opening to deny coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions. And on Thursday, in an interview with one of the primary architects of the proposal, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), MSNBC host Chuck Todd exposed another consequence of the GOP measure. It would actually serve to raise premiums for vulnerable Americans, like elderly people with debilitating health issues.

The Republican proposal promises to allow younger Americans to pay lower premiums for their health plans, and loosens some of the regulations that prevent insurance companies from setting their rates based on factors like health or gender. Todd pointed out that could ultimately result in older people, particularly those who are dealing with the health consequences of aging, paying much more for their care.

Hatch didn’t dispute that, acknowledging that “somebody has to pay for these things”:

CHUCK TODD: One of the assumed benefits in your new plan would allow for cheaper policies for young folks. At the same time, you would allow insurers to sell insurance at varying rates. So if you allow for a cheaper policy for younger, healthier people, right, this has been among the issues, the translation is you’re going to see — how do you prevent a spike for older Americans who, maybe just by default of genetics, are starting with a lot of health care problems, and because of that, end up getting charged more? How do you prevent that spike in rates for them?

ORRIN HATCH: Well, we have a formula in there that it can’t go beyond a certain position. But the fact of the matter is, somebody has to pay for these things. And the Obamacare bill doesn’t pay for things, they pushed them into — into Medicaid, which is non-functioning and not doing what it should do right now.

Watch it:

The two went on to discuss a 25-year-old unmarried man who will be able to get a cheaper policy under the GOP’s plan, since he won’t be required to purchase one that includes maternity coverage. But Todd pointed out that means a woman who needs that type of gender-specific coverage will ultimately have to pay more for it. “Aren’t you essentially shifting the costs to the health insurance user?” he noted. “Somebody is paying here.”

Republicans have maintained that their alternative to the Affordable Care Act will “reduce health care costs and increase access to affordable, high-quality care.” But doing away with the consumer protections that intend to regulate the insurance market for Americans who are older, sicker, and poorer will ultimately end up encouraging a shift toward requiring those individuals to shoulder a higher portion of their insurance costs.

In 1993, Hatch co-sponsored a much more moderate health reform proposal that would have established a minimum benefits package for American consumers. That measure also included a version of the individual mandate, which Hatch later decried as anunconstitutional policy during the fight to pass Obamacare.

Hatch Falsely Claims Jobless Benefits Last ‘Well Over 100 Weeks’ And Keep People Unemployed Longer

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) went on Fox News last night with host Greta Van Susteren to discuss the White House tax deal, which passed in the Senate yesterday afternoon. Hatch was largely supportive of the measure, which included an unpaid-for extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, but he was upset that the bill included an extension of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits because they were also not paid for. But in attacking the benefits extension, Hatch falsely claimed that UI currently lasts “well over 100 weeks,” and that jobless benefits encourage the unemployed not to look for work:

HATCH: I would prefer the insurance to be paid for, naturally. They weren’t going to pay for it. Let’s be honest about it — the Democrats have always won on unemployment insurance. It is well over 100 weeks now. There is no question people are suffering. I don’t want them to suffer.

On the other hand, we also know there are people who could be working who won’t work because they’ve got unemployment insurance and they keep — don’t go out and start looking, especially jobs that might not be as good as what they had before. So these are all things that had to be worked out.

Watch it:

It’s curious that Hatch has such a strong opinion on unemployment benefits, since he clearly doesn’t understand the program well. The length that UI benefits last differs between states, but nowhere in the country do benefits last “well over 100 weeks.” The maximum length of UI anywhere is 99 weeks, hence the so-called 99ers, people who have exhausted their benefits and have still been unable to find work. Fellow Republicans like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) have also railed against the extension of UI benefits in the tax bill while demonstrating they lack an elementary understanding of the program.

Meanwhile, Hatch’s claim that “there are people who could be working who won’t work because they’ve got unemployment insurance” is both false and offensive to people who are out of work. Research by the San Francisco Federal Reserve has found that workers who qualify for UI benefits stay unemployed for just 1.6 weeks longer than those who do not qualify for such benefits. Moreover, there is currently only one job opening for every five job seekers, meaning “even if every job opening were instantly filled with an unemployed worker, four out of five unemployed workers would still be looking for a job,” as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found.

And like many of his GOP colleagues, Hatch is upset that the UI benefits are not paid for, but has no problem exploding the deficit to lavish tax cuts on the wealthiest two percent of Americans, suggesting where his true priorities lie.