There is no TRUTH here at all. It’s false and misleading and will leave millions of Americans without adequate coverage. It’s ideological nonsense.
It’s easy to lower premiums if you lower coverage or put individuals at great risk for out of pocket costs.
“Real drivers of costs?” It’s not insurance companies‼️ “Increase choice?” That makes things worse.
“Bigger checks to insurance companies?” That’s inflammatory nonsense. Payments to insurance companies reflect the use and cost of healthcare being paid for. Those checks are not profit or CEO pay driven.
Exactly how will turning individuals out to buy health insurance on their own with more choice, with a pool of money to spend, lower the cost of the care they receive, the amount and type of care they receive or the quality of care they receive?
Where will they buy their insurance other than from the same insurers offered through the ACA exchanges across the country?
speaker.gov/2025/12/12/house-r
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
FEHBP? Give me a break.
Federal employees in the FEHBP have better coverage than you and I, which also means that it is more expensive, which also means that it costs taxpayers more, which also means that it drives annual deficits even higher. In other words, that proposal, like the idiot Democratic proposal to extend the super dollop of subsidies for three more years will increase annual deficits, and add to our national debt, burdening Americans too young to vote, and generations yet unborn.
Stop! Stop I say!
The only way to lower health care costs is, as Dick suggests, appropriately pooling risks.
The only effective option to pool risks is to provide a national stop loss for catastrophic costs – those that cannot be budgeted by individuals or employers.
The national stop loss would apply to every American citizen and all lawfully and indefinitely present in America. That would remove 50+% of all medical spend from basic coverage – making it affordable.
When we, as a society share the catastrophic costs and risks that only a society can shoulder, we would limit reimbursement to modest amounts (removing all of the profit from providers and insurers – using Medicare Allowable). That will allow reductions in basic coverage premiums/costs (the coverage up to the stop loss point).
To lower the cost of basic coverage, I favor a stop loss attachment point of $25,000 per person per year. Further, there can be no free riders – the individual mandate must apply to all American citizens and all lawfully and indefinitely present in America.
However, instead of charging younger Americans two to three times what their expected costs are for Exchange coverage in order to subsidize the cost of older americans, once catastrophic costs are socialized via national stop loss, the cost of basic coverage should decline appreciably. Then, premiums can reflect risk by age, probably less than $100 a month for those under age 30, ranging up to $500 or $600 a month for those age 60 – 64.
Medicare and Medicaid and VA would remain unchanged – except for participating in the national stop loss coverage. Individual, Exchange, and employer-sponsored coverage would continue as before, however, because catastrophic risks were removed, the cost should decline noticeably. Individuals who post a $25,000 bond, or who confirm a HSA Account Balance of $25,000 could opt out of the coverag default.
To ensure there are no free riders, every American would be defauled into Exchange coverage each November, and would have to provide proof that they have other coverage in order to opt out.
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Al Lindquist:
interesting proposal–who am I to disagree with professionals–seems like we could be doing something better than what we currently have.
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Al Lindquist:
hook everyone up to the Federal Health program–numerous choices that federal workers have and there seems to be no trouble when making a selection–Consumer Checkbook for 40-50 years have analyzed each plan and gave advice for best coverage for families, singles, etc..
Folks buy life, auto, umbrella, long term care, home owners, and rental insurance–they are not as ill informed as some folks think–might take 5-7 years to get it done but folks would have choices and could fulfill the need as do exchanges.
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