CONGRESS S BACK TO WORK FINALLY
Congress has woken up from a long nap, had its coffee, and is rolling up its sleeves. On top of the two great anti-transgender bills, it also passed two major legislative packages this week. Politico reported the first one under the headline, “House passes major GOP-led permitting overhaul after late drama.” The ‘drama,’ which I will not mention further, had to do with windmills.
JEFF CHILDERS
IN THE COMMENT SECTION
Politico described the bill, called the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, as ‘bipartisan,’ because Republicans actually picked up 11 Democrats in the vote. In practical terms, it heavily amends the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which protects the nation’s environment by making builders prove their big projects are safe for all the little creatures that squirm and squiggle in the ground and in the water, especially activist lawyers, and generally ensures that nothing important can be built at all.
Technically speaking, NEPA requires years of ‘environmental reviews’ to approve energy, infrastructure, and multifamily housing (apartments) projects. NEPA allows environmental activists sue to stop development for up to ten years if they can find box turtle lurking nearby. Other countries aren’t dumb enough to impose these rules, which is why it is possible to easily build a steel mill in the Brazilian rainforest, but virtually impossible to build it in the Arizona desert, and fantastically expensive even if so.
The new bill doesn’t delete environmental protections. It would just tighten statutes of limitations, shorten challenge periods, and reduce the overall number of projects eligible for NEPA review. But that is a huge improvement. If the SPEED Act passes the Senate, it will cut through rolls of red tape, defang the environmental lawfare industry, and unleash big projects in an exuberant way we haven’t seen in the entire postwar period.
? Next, Healthcare Dive covered the second bill in a story headlined, “House passes Republican health bill without ACA subsidy extension.” All the media focused on was that the bill did not extend Obamacare “subsidies” —a progressive euphemism for massive direct payments to insurance companies— which ensured certain high-end individual policies would remain affordable by bribing insurers. (These expiring subsidies are what fuels much of the recent “affordability” narrative.)
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Instead, the Republican bill would provide for: “sending the subsidy money directly to Americans” in their health savings accounts, making employer-sponsored insurance easier, setting up new ways for small businesses to band together into associations for group negotiating, and expanding eligibility for catastrophic plans to everyone, instead of limiting these plans to under-30s and people with hardship exemptions.
That latter tweak is a potential game-changer. Obama essentially outlawed cheap catastrophic coverage, which is essentially bare-bones health insurance with very high deductibles, which only come into play when a serious health problem arises, rather than funding day-to-day medical care. If the bill passes, starting in 2027, catastrophic plans will no longer be illegal.
The Senate bill summary projected that catastrophic policies could sell for as little as $1,000-$1,500 per year. The implications are huge. First, healthy young and working-age people who typically need little coverage anyway can get perfectly satisfactory coverage for worst-case scenarios without breaking the bank. Second, all healthy folks, even older ones, are likely to quickly move out of Obamacare’s “unaffordability” pools into these much cheaper plans, accelerating Obamacare’s death on the vine.
Several years ago, the Childers family went bare —no insurance— since “affordable care” became totally unaffordable for our family of five. As a cash payer, I can assure you that we usually pay much less for medical services than insured people must co-pay for the exact same procedures. For one example, an MRI might cost us $150, whereas an Obamacare person has to cough up $500+ in co-pay. Similarly, what we pay for generic drugs is often less than the insurance co-pay amount. Last year, for example, we paid our concierge provider $7 for a course of antibiotics for one of the kids— cheaper than a peppermint mocha. That’s without insurance.
In other words, when you account for co-pays and annual deductibles, a lot of people with Obamacare policies don’t really enjoy any actual benefit apart from catastrophic protection anyway. It’s a massive shell game.
DR. OFFICE: That will be $463 for your checkup today.
PATIENT: But I have insurance!
DR. OFFICE: You haven’t met your $5,000 deductible, sorry. And here’s your prescription, which will be $82 in co-pay.
PATIENT: Thanks a lot. So affordable.
The Obamacare catastrophe won’t be fixed by one bill. But it is extremely encouraging that, based on this week’s activity, the House seems to be back in business. Speaker Johnson has promised a “surge” in legislative work starting immediately after the holidays. That’s good, because to cement in the Trump Agenda, they have a lot of work to do.
From this week’s frenzied docket, it looks like they might be getting a head start.
Having a “catastrophic” option will lower the cost for many young families who never use enough Healthcare to eat up the deductible.
When Obama Care became law, I heard so many complain about their premiums rising as they had to have the full plan now which they would never use. Catastrophic Insurance plans can apply to home insurance having a high deductible. “Uge” difference in premium and most people can do minor repairs which they can do themselves or pay with the premium saved.
The ACA was a gift to the Health Insurers. They likely wrote the Bill.