Many Americans feel that some Republicans fail to understand them as much as the Democrats do. Shining example of it is the proposed health care plan by Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH).

Let me first state my deep respect for Senator Gregg and his life-time service to the American people, but his plan called CPR (Coverage, Prevention, Reform) while well intentioned is about everything that people hated in the health care debate last year.

Number one factor that makes the folks to distrust Washington is the inability of the politicians on both sides of the isle to call the things with their real names.

For example, Senator Gregg, like President Obama and his friends Pelosi and Reid call the mandatory health insurance: “ENSURING ACCESS FOR ALL AMERICANS”.

Mr. Gregg, your plan does not ensure access – it makes it mandatory for everybody over age of 18 to find a way to buy insurance. If a person cannot afford health insurance today it does not make it any easier to get one if the government makes it mandatory. Let’s call the mandate a mandate and not make it sound like some charitable rain is coming upon the masses.

In the same line of thinking the government can make it mandatory for everybody to have a job (those who are unemployed cost us money too) – that way the “unemployment” will be fixed the same way they are trying to fix “the uninsured” problem. The bureaucrats may even call it “ENSURING ACCESS TO WORK FOR ALL AMERICANS” and enforce penalty of $750 a year for everybody who fails to provide proof of employment.

Not all is bad in the Senator’s CPR. Taxing the “Cadillac” plans is a good idea. Sen. Gregg calls it “cap tax exclusion”. In Layman’s terms if your health plan benefits cost over $5,000 per individual per year everything over that sum will not be tax-deductable and will be added to your taxable income. Sounds reasonable for the government to subsidize the basic health care coverage and not subsidize plans that include luxury medical procedures.
Of course it will only be fair if it is implemented for all Americans and there are no exceptions for the union workers like Obama administration was ready to do. Taxing the “Cadillac” plans seems reasonable as long as everybody who has a fancy plan is included on the tab.

Here comes a little gimmick though in Senator Gregg’s plan. Health benefits will be tax-deductible under the Gregg’s CPR (under the cap of course). Duh! They are tax-deductible now. Senator is not proposing tax-credits (as Paul Ryan in his Roadmap), but tax-deductions and we already have those in place. Why did he make it look like the tax-payers will get some new benefits? I don’t know. I hope the team that made the proposal wasn’t trying to sprinkle dust in the eyes of the folks trying to weigh pros and cons.

The Gregg’s CPR plan promotes the idea of cutting costs through creating a series of new bureaucracies. It is expanding existing ones (like the wellness HIPPA program) or creating brand new ones like State Exchanges and Accountable Care Organizations (5 billion dollar bureaucracies that are included in both the House and the Senate health care bills).

The thinking in Washington DC (which Senator Gregg is joining) is that new bureaucracies can regulate the health care providers to a point where they will start bringing the cost down.

We already have in place gigantic bureaucracies that are failing to regulate the health care costs. There is absolutely no sense in the idea that a new commission, department or “an accountable care organization” will fix what many departments, institutes, and other government bureaucracies are failing to do for years.

Reforming Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security should include trimming the existing bureaucracies not expanding them. Gregg’s proposal that combines the myriad Part A and B co-payments in Medicare into a single $525 co-pay, and implementing a uniform 20% deductible and create an annual cap on total expenses of $5,250 is a great start in the lean direction.

Medicare web-site contains over 600 frequently asked questions. The program is sinking in waste and fraud. Lean structure will make it more effective and will bring the costs down. Government should increase productivity like the private sector does and this, in my opinion, should start with freeze on expanding and creating new bureaucracies and government programs.

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