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www.newsindiatimes.com – that’s all you need to know Dr. Sudhir M. Parikh Founder, Chairman & Publisher Ilayas Quraishi Chief Operating Officer Ela Dutt Editor T. Vishnudatta Jayaraman Washington D.C. Bureau Chief Archana Adalja Contributing Editor Arun Shah Ahmedabad Bureau Chief Peter Ferreira, Deval Parikh, Freelance Photographers Bhailal M. Patel Executive Vice President Chandrakant Koticha-Rajkot, India Executive Director Business Development Jim Gallentine Business Development Manager - U.S. Shahnaz Sheikh Senior Manager Advertising & Marketing Sonia Lalwani Advertising Manager Shailu Desai Advertising New York Muslima Shethwala Syed Sheeraz Mahmood Advertising Chicago Digant Sompura Consultant for Business Development Ahmedabad, India Hervender Singh Circulation Manager Main Office Editorial & Corporate Headquarters 1655 Oak Tree Toad, Suite 155 Edison, NJ 08820-2843 Tel. (212) 675-7515 Fax. 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Postmaster: Send address change to News India Times, 1655 Oak Tree Toad, Suite 155 Edison, NJ 08820-2843 Annual Subscription: United States: $28 Disclaimer: Parikh Worldwide Media assumes no liability for claims/ assumptions made in advertisements and advertorials. Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. Photo:TheWashington Post JDVance’s Health-Care Idea Is Bad Politics — But Reasonable Policy J DVance says he wants “more choice in our health-care system.” Progres- sives warn that what he really has in mind would make health insurance more expensive and less accessible for people who are poor and sick. His idea has some positive potential, though, at least if it were implemented the right way. Vance suggests that if the government were to allow young and healthy people to buy policies designed for their risk profiles, they would have lower premiums and more of them would have coverage. The counterargument is that people with low risks will flock to the cheaper plans, leaving more extensive policies covering a sicker population and charging higher premiums. Premium hikes could start a vicious cycle, making the more com- prehensive policies even less attractive to low-risk customers. In the worst-case scenario, the market for individually pur- chased insurance would fall apart. Yet catastrophic predictions about the effects of relaxing rules on health insur- ance have a poor track record. The Afford- able Care Act, also known as Obamacare, included a fine on people who did not buy insurance, mainly to prevent any un- raveling of the market. Experts on the left and the right thought that without this mandate, the ranks of the insured would drop by 13 million. Markets survived, though, when Republicans in 2017 voted to set the fine at zero dollars beginning in 2019. The number of people with insur- ance has risen since then. There were similar warnings when the Trump administration allowed people to buy renewable short-term insurance that avoids some of the ACA’s regulations. The doomsayers seem to have been wrong about that, too: These plans reduced pre- miums and increased coverage. Deregulating also wouldn’t have to mean going all the way back to the way things were before the ACA, when people with preexisting conditions and no insur- ance often languished in underfunded high-risk pools run by the states. Much of the point of letting healthy people buy af- fordable insurance is to persuade them to buy insurance before they get sick. People who had kept their coverage and then got sick could still be protected from be- ing cut off or charged higher premiums. That’s the policy Republicans embraced the last time they tried to replace Obam- acare. Maintaining continuous coverage would also be easier than it was pre-ACA, since that law both expanded Medicaid and created tax credits for people who weren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or an employer plan. Because of these changes in health insurance - changes that Vance has not proposed eliminating and has sometimes even defended - the demand for government-funded high- risk pools should be more manageable. In fact, we already have risk pools with substantial federal funding. As Obam- acare has evolved, that’s the function its exchanges have performed. The vast majority of participants are receiving federal subsidies that increase when their premiums do. There are not a lot of low-risk, unsubsidized participants who would be tempted by cheap, unsubsi- dized insurance. If any left and premiums rose, meanwhile, higher subsidies would protect those who remained. To a large extent, you’d just be chang- ing the way we pay to insure people with chronic conditions. More of the cost would be paid by taxpayers in general and less by young and healthy people who choose to buy insurance on the individual market. And the money would be routed through the beneficiaries to the insurance companies, rather than the other way around. That’s the theory, anyway. We’d have to see specific legislation to get a bet- ter sense of the pros and cons of Vance’s ideas. But we might not get the chance. Congressional Republicans have little ap- petite for reopening Obamacare, which is why they have mostly stayed silent since Vance spoke (as has Donald Trump). Many of the obstacles that kept Repub- licans from replacing Obamacare in 2017 - even with control of the House, Senate andWhite House - are still present or even larger. Few Republicans in Congress knew much about health policy, and the party had done little preparatory work, such as getting its candidates to agree to the same policies. The current crop of Republicans has done even less work on health care. The filibuster, meanwhile, is still in place. If Trump wins in November, his ad- ministration will probably again enforce regulations with a light hand. Trump will almost certainly fail, though, if he tried to adjust the ACA’s protections for people with preexisting conditions, which is why he is unlikely to try. Which leaves open why Vance men- tioned the possibility. My guess is that having spent more time thinking about health policy than most Republican officials, he couldn’t let the question go unanswered and then kept defending his position - even though it’s only going to bring him political trouble. Ramesh Pon- nuru, a contribut- ing columnist for the Washington Post, is the editor of National Review and a fellow at the American Enter- prise Institute. -Special to TheWashington Post By Ramesh Ponnuru Democrats Hope ToWin AHouseMajority On Harris’s California Coattails D ave Min, a Democrat running in one of the tightest House races in the country, campaigned over the weekend at a retirement community. “I want to give a shoutout to my favorite senior right now,” he said. “Joe Biden!” The state senator gushed about an octogenarian who lived 2,700 miles away because, had the president not stepped aside, Republicans probably would have won this seat. Biden car- ried what’s now California’s 47th District by 11 points in 2020. Internal polling after the disastrous June 27 debate showed him trailing narrowly and dragging down Min. The dynamics reversed when Vice President Kamala Harris, a favorite daughter of California, became the first Democratic presidential nominee from theWest. “We keep thinking the Kamala lovefest is going to end, but so far it hasn’t,” Min said in an interview. “A rising tide lifts all boats. If they vote for Kamala, they’re likely to vote for me.” Republicans will likely flip the Senate, as they’re favored to pick up seats inWest Virginia and Montana. That makes the toss-ups that will determine control of Congress the most consequential non-presidential contests. Republicans hold an eight-seat House majority. The Cook Political Report rates 10 California seats as competitive, more than in any other state. The question hanging over these races: Does Harris have coattails back home? She will help Democrats along the Califor- nia coast but maybe not so much in the agrarian Central Valley or the exurbs of Los Angeles. The answer could determine how much of her agenda she’d be able to enact if she wins. Flanked by cardboard cutouts of Harris and a young-looking Biden, Min said the lame-duck president steered the country away from dark forces and that his stepping aside for a woman of color - however reluctantly - will be looked upon kindly by history if it keeps former president Donald Trump at bay on Nov. 5. Republican Scott Baugh, Min’s opponent, said the race is now By James Hohmann - Continued On Page 4 Commentary Opinion News India Times (September 28 - October 4, 2024) October 4, 2024 3