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The Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker unveiled a plan of replacing President Obama’s health care overhaul with a system of refundable tax credits that can aid residents have a health insurance through a state-run insurance exchange.
Walker also plans to shift eligibility from income to age and revamp Medicaid. The presidential candidate disclosed his plans on revising the national health care program Tuesday during a speech held in Minneapolis.
Nevertheless, he didn’t provide details on how much the revamped plan would cost to implement or on how many residents would get health care coverage under the new initiative. Recent reports show that currently 11 percent of U.S. adults don’t have an insurance, which means that almost 16 million received health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Walker only explained that the new health care program would be funded from $1 trillion worth of tax savings which would be made when Obamacare would be repelled and from further tweaks to Medicaid programs.
Both Walker and other GOP hopefuls have based their political campaign on promises to repel the health care law on the first day in the White House office. But that is easier said than done because the Senate must vote against the law by 60 votes and if that fails Walker doesn’t have a Plan B.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a major provision of the law although Walker and other Republican candidates have been battling the it both in and outside courts for five years now.
Some critics have argued that Walker’s plans of repelling Obamacare would mean a step backwards since the costs of health care would rise for employers. Yet, Walkers alternative is less restrictive than Obamacare. For instance, health coverage would not be compulsory and people would not face fines as they are currently facing.
Yet, the Wisconsin governor needs to find other ways to persuade healthy people to enroll in the program in order to have enough money to cover for the expenses with health insurance of the chronically ill and elderly.
Walker said that the state would offer tax credits to help enrollees pay their health insurance. But credits of $900 to $3,000 would be grounded on the age of the enrollee rather than on their income.
Walker hopes that his new plan would reduce premiums by one-quarter. He also said that any enrollee that agrees to have a health savings account would benefit from $1,000 refundable tax credits. Plus, people would be encourage to shop for their insurance at state-run exchanges and states would have more regulatory power.
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