Miller-Meeks' health care bill is 'warmed-over' ideas that won't become law

There are two things to remember about Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ health care proposal.

1. Its primary purpose is politics, not lowering costs.

2. It has precious little chance of becoming law.

Republicans have been scrambling for weeks to try to avoid the blame for expiration of the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which will cause health insurance costs for 22 million people to more than double, on average, according to the non-partisan health research group KFF.

This includes more than 100,000 Iowa farmers, small businesspeople and others who don’t get their insurance through the government or their employers.

That’s a lot of people. So, faced with the political reality that these rising costs may hurt them in the midterm elections next year, congressional Republicans are doing what politicians do: Scrambling for cover.

The House GOP’s is trying to fool voters into thinking they’re doing something real.

Miller-Meeks got some helpful headlines in the Iowa media with this new proposal, but as Axios reported, the bill is really just a “grab bag” of existing GOP measures. These recycled proposals have languished for years among the party and their corporate and ideological allies but never were important enough to pass into law — even when the GOP had the majority.

Today, however, they’ve become a useful political shield.

These ideas include association health plans, health reimbursement accounts and restoration, after next year’s election, of taxpayer funds for insurance companies, which the Trump administration previously eliminated. (Suddenly, Republicans don’t mind sending taxpayer money to big bad insurance companies.)

All agree these provisions will do nothing to head off the immediate price hikes. In fact, the GOP leadership has tried to block a vote to extend the Obamacare tax credits in order to force the moderates in their caucus to vote for the leadership’s bill. The bill passed 516-511 on Wednesday. But four moderate Republicans joined Democrats to force a vote on the tax credits in January.

And let’s face it, this is really Speaker Johnson’s bill. Miller-Meeks is only listed as the lead sponsor because they know it will help as she faces a difficult re-election campaign. This kind of game-playing is not an uncommon tactic among politicians.

As for the bill itself, there has been plenty of criticism about association health plans over the years, such as their ability to skirt consumer protections and susceptibility to fraud. The pharmacy benefit manager provision that’s also included in this new legislation is a lite version of what lawmakers previously demanded. Meanwhile, the bill helpfully provides companies with an off-ramp if they want to ditch their employer-sponsored insurance plans.

Still, all these flaws don’t describe the real phoniness of Miller-Meeks’ scheme, which is this: It won’t become law.

Who says?

Here’s Punchbowl News, one of the best-connected political journals in Washington, D.C.

“The GOP package this week is effectively warmed over health care provisions that the Senate has already rejected.”

Nothing is certain, but you get the idea. Republicans may have been able to pass the bill by a narrow majority, but what now?

Miller-Meeks and the GOP leadership seem to believe that just by looking like they’re doing something they will fool the American people.

They don’t want voters to know the real truth, which is this: They hate Obamacare. They’ve tried for years to kill this popular, if flawed, law that was signed by a two-term president who, even today, Republicans can’t stand.

They couldn’t defeat Obama at the ballot box, so they want to scuttle his legacy. They couldn’t do it in the open, during Donald Trump’s first term, so now they’re trying to do it by subterfuge. They inserted carefully crafted language into the Trump tax cut law this year to try to hobble the Affordable Care Act, and now they are trying to kill its enhanced tax credits.

If Republicans win on this issue — and even if they don’t — they will continue going after the rest of the ACA. They don’t seem to care that millions of Americans finally have secured health insurance because of this law, and they tend to like it, even with its flaws.

In fact, Obamacare has never been more popular. A recent Gallup poll said that while Democrats and Republicans are predictably divided, 63% of independents approve of the law.

Meanwhile, a KFF poll said a majority of Americans want the enhanced tax credits to be extended.

These are the political realities Republicans are trying to avoid. So, they introduce a bill that amounts to a jumble of stuff they hope will look like a real Obamacare alternative, dress it up with puffed-up marketing and hope people don’t look closely at the details.

This perfectly suits Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

Iowans, in both parties, have long known this about the 1st District congresswoman: She is a cagey politician who desperately wants to be in Congress but does little substantive while she’s there. She is famously hard to pin down on what she truly believes and, as a result, she retains so little trust that many in her own party have to hold their noses to vote for her.

Even trying to figure out where she lives is a chore. A recent Quad-City Times article reported Miller-Meeks changed her voter registration address to Ottumwa, where she’s long maintained a home, even as she was registered to vote in LeClair e and later Davenport.

Now, it’s back to Ottumwa.

The deadline to sign up for Obamacare passed on Monday. But as Jonathan Cohn at the Bulwark pointed out, there still is a way to help these millions of Americans who are facing skyrocketing costs.

However, it will require Miller-Meeks and the GOP’s congressional leadership to do two things: 1. Stop trying to kill Obamacare. 2. Worry more about your constituents than your own re-election.

Ed Tibbetts’ writing can be found at Along the Mississippi (ed tbbetts.substack.com), and he is a proud member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Check out the work of Ed and his colleagues and consider subscribing.