Posted on 02/23/2010 7:18:45 AM PST by cll
Puerto Rico has come out on the short end of the proposal unveiled Monday by President Obama in a new effort for a comprehensive reform of the nation’s health care system.
The president’s plan mostly reflects the Senate version of the two bills currently stalled in Congress. Puerto Rico and the territories were left out of the health insurance exchange in the Senate measure and the president’s plan.
The exchange is meant to subsidize premiums for working–class people without health insurance. In Puerto Rico, about 400,000 uninsured do not qualify for Medicaid, while not being able to afford private insurance.
Puerto Rico and the territories were included in the exchange in the bill approved by the House. The island needs some sort of insurance exchange, where people can search out the best health insurance deals, if it is to approach universal coverage.
Under the Obama proposal, which raises the Medicaid cap by 5 percent, the island will get some $500 million a year more in Medicaid funds over nine years. If Obama had adopted the House bill on the territories, Puerto Rico would have come up with another $1 billion annually for its poorest health-care patients.
Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi insisted Monday that the president’s proposal was still “a work in progress.”
Nevertheless, he criticized the island’s treatment in the plan, which, he said, “leaves much to be desired.” Pierluisi said the Obama proposal “does not do justice to the territories, as the Senate bill did not, and the House bill did.”
The plan, which was put on the White House Web site Monday morning, does incorporate some of the House provisions in the Senate bill, but none of those addressing the territories.
The $950 billion proposal would have cost about $10 billion more if the territories were included in the exchange and given the more generous House Medicaid hikes, according to estimates.
Shortly after the president’s plan went online, Republicans slammed it as “the same massive government takeover of health care” and said it undermined the bipartisan goals of the health care summit set for the White House this week.
Gov. Fortuño, who is attending the National Governors Association meeting here, said earlier Monday after a meeting of the governors with the president that he had not seen the Obama proposal, but understood that it would follow the Senate measure.
“That means the territories would make out worse,” he said.
The governor reiterated what he told the Daily Sun Saturday: that his administration would be looking for ways to get Puerto Rico into a health insurance exchange. He mentioned the system in Utah, where a state law permits businesses there with more than 50 employees to be part of a Web-based exchange for medical insurance and information. F ortuño has been an anomaly among fellow Republicans, in that he has strongly supported the Obama administration’s health reform.
On Monday, however, he seemed to pull away from the importance of the plan to the island. “It would be great if we had health care, but job creation is the number one issue for the governors of all the states, and also for the governor of Puerto Rico,” he said.
On another issue, the governor said the March 3 one-day meeting on the island of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rican Status should be an “educational exercise” for the task force members.
The task force, composed of high-level officials in the federal agencies that deal with island issues, will hold the day-long meeting at the Convention Center, where Puerto Rico party officials, academics, community leaders, and others will give their views on status and the local economy.
What we did was to get the government out of the business of providing healthcare directly to the people (except for trauma centers). People and employers have to buy their own insurance in the open market, and the poor, disabled, unemployed, elderly or anybody who cannot afford health insurance, get theirs from the government who also purchase the insurance in the open market.
“Under the Obama proposal, which raises the Medicaid cap by 5 percent, the island will get some $500 million a year more in Medicaid funds over nine years”
This is incorrect. Medicaid is not extended to Puerto Rico residents. It does not exist here. It is the MediCARE cap which was raised.
Puerto Rico residents pay the same in Medicare taxes as mainland residents, but the benefits are capped by Congress.
Can I change my official residence to the Northern Marianas now?
“Barack Obama doesn’t care about Puerto Rican people.”
He doesn’t. Which is just fine with me.
“Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi . . . criticized the island’s treatment in the plan, which, he said, . . . ‘does not do justice to the territories, as the Senate bill did not, and the House bill did.’”
Translation: where’s our free stuff, courtesy of the American taxpayers?
Being on the “losing” end of any Obama proposal is actually a great thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.