Gillespie Leveraging Near-Win in Senate Race to Push Health Care Reform

Ed Gillespie was supposed to be the guy who handed the GOP reins back to the Establishment, ran a decent if nondescript campaign, and then faded away into obscurity. Thankfully, no one bothered to tell him that. As a result, he put forward a health care plan that not only junks Obamacare, but greatly improves the market in general; then he used it to come within an eye-lash of upsetting Mark Warner.

Even better, Gillespie is refusing to exit the argument simply because of his narrow loss. Instead, he’s using the political capital he earned to take the debate national (in particular, to the New York Times this week).

Gillespie does a good job of explaining how we got here:

My plan begins by addressing an anachronistic aspect of the tax code that’s rooted in World War II wage and price controls. Those who get health insurance through their employer get a tax break, but those who purchase it on their own generally do not.

While preserving the tax break for employer-based insurance, my plan would offer health-insurance tax credits for all individuals and families who buy insurance on their own…

…These tax credits would benefit everyone, whereas under the Affordable Care Act premium assistance almost exclusively benefits the near-poor and the near-elderly, at great cost to the middle class and the young.

However, the real benefit to the plan comes a few paragraphs later:

Under my alternative, Medicaid would revert to pre-Obamacare eligibility levels. Anyone who was added to Medicaid under Obamacare would be free to buy personal insurance with their new tax credits. Those who remained on Medicaid could voluntarily switch to them.

It’s that last sentence that won me over when Gillespie first announced the plan. I have previously discussed how Medicaid – because it is cut off from the health care pricing model – is such a disaster for the poor (to be fair, the model itself has serious problems). Any plan to fix the health insurance and health care markets needs to liberate the poor from the Medicaid regimen. This was the first plan I have seen that even made the attempt.

Margaret Thatcher famously said, “First you win the argument; then you win the election.” Gillespie has decided to follow in Maggie’s footsteps…and since he didn’t quite get the latter, he’s rightly pushing harder on the former. Hopefully, his fellow Republicans (including the yet-unknown 2016 presidential nominee) will follow suit.

@deejaymcguire | facebook.com/people/Dj-McGuire | DJ’s posts

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