What is so sad about this to me is that “the purpose has been lost!”

Company paid health insurance began as a competitive thing. To get around price controls imposed during WWII, companies began to offer ‘benefits’ to workers to hire them and retain them. Think about that for a minute.

Government mandated portability destroys one of the primary reasons companies paid for health insurance to begin with. But now government is requiring companies to pay for health insurance if they are of a certain size. A consequence of this is that companies don’t want to grow past that threshold.

It would seem that no one in government understand the ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’ but I think at least some of them do AND they relish the chaos they cause because it gives them more to regulate. That in turn means more have to be hired and job security increases.

This whole mess starts with the wage freezes the government imposed during WWII. Funny thing is, I can’t find that part of the government’s powers anywhere in my copy of the Constitution. Maybe liberals have something different in theirs?

I’ll find something different to whine about tomorrow :-(

i share your concerns...and mistake Conservatives make is to object ON PRINCIPLE to the theft of taxation...

it is the old two-step forward one step back that fascism and socialism use to creep closer to total govt control of it's serfs (i mean citizens)...it is why Conservatism will fail...and we will all lose our liberty and freedom....

Because it's "the right thing to do", or "it's for the children", or "we can't put all those (Obamacare) employees out of work", or, or...

Amazingly, this country survived for hundreds of years before government mandated healthcare. I believe that if they simply repealed Obamacare, that the states would fill the void...just like they were doing, before the Liberals botched everything.

As I have pointed out before, the actors have changed the play is the same. The promise that the ACA will be repealed and then replaced confirms that we will still have the same thing but perhaps with a different name especially when some senator (or the president elect) says something like, "well, we want to keep the good parts?" Using definitions properly this country is a communist democracy where you can vote for the people who will steal and imprison you next. The problem is not the leaders, they are the symptom. The problem is this is what the majority of the people want, including republicans or any other party that concerns itself with getting elected.

Itemize tax deductions and claim medical expenses subject to a 7.5% threshold. Make that threshold 0% and more individuals could afford at least some of the expense. Better than the "earned income credit" - this would become the tax credit. Then, remove this expense from the "itemized deduction" panel; and make it a direct offset to taxed income. Just for starters until the entire tax code is repealed...

Huzzah! Huzzah! :)

I agree with what you have said. The only excuse that I can think of for Rand Paul to be promoting this. Is that he has surrendered to the idea that the Left has promoted. The idea that the Government must have a hand in and control over each individuals health care.

Beyond basic consumer protections and requiring proof that insurers are sufficiently capitalized (to cover their potential claims), etc., the government doesn't have any need to be involved.

"The GOP needs an alternative to Obamacare."
They have one. It's a rarely seen thing that works more efficiently than anything else ever devised and it's called THE FREE MARKET."
(National Review is just another CINO statist propaganda rag that long ago lost any intent to support liberty and free market capitalism.)

Compliment to you, AJA.
Rand has been in DC and has been listening to the media too long . He has forgotten his oath of office and his reason.

"There is nothing stopping me, you or anyone from setting aside their own income as a HSA for medical situations. "
I know. I've been doing it voluntarily for about 10 years. Unlike Roths, there're no income limits. It's tax-deductible going in, grows tax free, and is tax free coming out when used for medical expenses. You can invest it in stock and bonds. I don't even take money out for healthcare; I use other funds. You can only put $7k a year in, but it's worth doing. It's one form in the bound book of tax papers my CPA generates.

It would be great if there were no booklet of taxes, but as tax headaches go, I consider HSAs a plus.

We just got dinged for $4k for sending employees' withholding in using paper checks, even though I sent them in on time with Form 941 perfectly correct; you're supposed to use electronic remittance. The funny thing is we sent a letter asking if we can get the penalty forgiven, and they sent back a snail mail letter saying they received our letter and are doing an administrative process to make a decision that could take months. So they sent a letter saying, "ah, let me think about it."

Given all the other other hassles, I consider HSAs to be one of the wonders of the tax world.

that's an awful big complement or a really big insult. :) thank you?

Yes.

Okay. If they, the government extracts it from you, for you or anyone else, without your permission and consent its theft. It, they, have no right to put their hand into my pocket for anything unless I allow it (and they steal enough already). There is nothing stopping me, you or anyone from setting aside their own income as a HSA for medical situations. Why must the government ensure I do this? Are they me? No. Are they the insurer? No. So they provide the medical service? No.Sounds awful lot as a scheme insert itself to make money, no?

What Government is is a parasite who feeds off others wealth. To get that wealth it has to attach itself in every conceivable way it can devise in order to feed. They are deliberately impeding my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and infringing on my property to feel the financial gluttony. The host, America, is dying and this unconstitutional mental mindset has to stop.

Tenth Amendment. Free Market.

Nothing in the article about the HSAs being subsized. It implies they'd work as the they have for the past 10 years. The whole tenor of the article is about freeing the market. I don't get, based on this one article, why people think it's so bad. The author acknowledges there are nits to be picked. As gov't initiatives go, though, this one sounds like a solid step toward gov't leaving people alone.

It isn't unless it is subsidized.

Obamacare could never have been a system of tax credits for private health care accounts because their premise was more statism and collectivism making health care a government entitlement. They aren't interest in employees making more decisions about their own health care. Obamacare was intended as step leading to full socialized medicine and Obama was caught on video saying so.

It was never intended to work in the form the Democrats passed it. They knew it would not work but deliberately set out to entrench into law as many statist-collectivist premises they could, expecting that it would cause chaos in the insurance industry followed by a public clamor for a stronger government "solution". It's the classic pattern of more government controls promoted to "solve" problems caused by government controls, exploiting collectivist premises to rationalize progressively intensifying all of it.

"Taxation is theft for a HSA or not."
I simply don't get how an HSA is a tax.

Tax credits for contributing to your own or other's health savings are step in the right direction to allow freedom of choice, just like tax credits for education. It could be implemented to improve on the pre-Obamacare system.

Establishment Republicans don't like it because of their statist-collectivist premises. You see that every time they shriek their slogan "repeal and replace", with a big emphasis on "replace". Why "replace"? "Replace" with what? Repealing Obama health controls does replace it -- with the relatively freer system replaced by the Obamacare Democrats rammed through as all the statism they could get at the time.

When Republicans, including Trump, shriek for and emphasize "replace" they mean replace with another government run system not much different than what they think are the "popular" parts of Obamacare and no way to pay for it. They don't want to go back to pre-Obamacare, let alone actually improve on that. There is too much of the predicted constituency for not giving up the latest round of subsidies, and the Republicans are too ignorant and too afraid to advocate for freedom and rights of the individual. The way they are going Obama was right when he said that they will modify his system and call it something else. "Me too but slower".

Health care is not the job of government.
Health insurance is NOT HEALTH CARE.
AJA is a much better representative for the people that Rand Paul.
GET OUT OF THE WAY, RAND!

He's a politician. None of them honor their vows to protect and obey the constitution.
He has never been the supporter of liberty and limited govenment that his father was.
He is a moderate Republican, not libertarian.

Good question. I'd like him to answer that question as well. Perhaps his Libertarianism is being worn down ias he functions inside the political machine?
I can only speculate its incrementally dismantling what O setup. If true, the question then becomes why be incrementalist? The republicans have the House and the Senate and DT said he'd sign. All that need be done is defund O-care. Why this p*ss approach. Just do it.

And incrementally taken apart of not the entire assumption of authority in this matter is not stated in the Constitution and is firmly in the domain of the States, if their people allow it.

Taxation is theft for a HSA or not.

"Nowhere in the constitution is the fedgiv given this authority. Paul knows this..."
Why would he propose something he knows is unconstitutional?

Its entirely unconstitutional regardless of how its framed or who its framed by. Nowhere in the constitution is the fedgiv given this authority. Paul knows this...

Rand Paul's plan sounds exactly like what I think ACA should have been. It is a really good start.

My biggest concern (one of those nits in an overall good thing) with Paul's proposal is what to do with people who are irresponsible in that they have no wealth, maintain no insurance, and then they need medicine. It's easy to say, "that's not my problem," but those people will find a way to freeload.

I hate to focus on "framing", but they should sell this thing to Democrats too "HSAs shift control of health-care spending from employers to employees." --> "HSAs shift control of health-care decisions from corporations to workers" It's a little different, but it happens to be true. Democrats should support a plan along the lines of what this article says Paul is proposing.