The ‘Kimmel test’ could be a good health care yardstick for the GOP

Should the “Kimmel test” help shape the health care bill that the US Senate is now working on behind closed doors? Republican senators could easily use it to vet the bill while staying true to their conservative roots.

Last month, talk show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel shared with his audience a story about his son, Billy, who had been born a few days earlier with a heart defect called the tetralogy of Fallot and needed open heart surgery at three days old.

“If your baby is going to die, and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make,” pleaded Kimmel in an impassioned take on health insurance that has been viewed by millions.

Not long afterward, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who represents Louisiana, said that any Republican health care legislation would need to pass the “Jimmy Kimmel test.” Morally and politically, Cassidy is right.

Every day in my work in a pediatric emergency department, I see firsthand that the Affordable Care Act, the law that the Republican House and Senate are determined to replace, saves lives. Before the ACA, children born with pre-existing conditions were often uninsurable, their families left to struggle with an unmanageable economic burden.

Kimmel thinks the solution is easy: “Don’t give a huge tax cut to millionaires like me and instead leave it [the ACA] how it is.” But the solution is far from easy.

As a physician, a conservative Republican, and a health insurance scholar, I believe that government intrusion into private insurance has had serious consequences. Families across America are paying thousands of dollars a year more in higher health insurance premiums. Insurers, which have been losing money, have started abandoning entire markets. The House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act in early May, believing it had to do so to stabilize markets and reduce premiums. But the Congressional Budget Office finally reported that the AHCA strips away most protections for pre-existing conditions and pushes an estimated 23 million more Americans into being uninsured.

Can we Republicans pass the Kimmel test, improving on the AHCA while still ensuring the sustainability of American health care? Senate Republicans have expressed skepticism, but I believe we can. The key is to stay true to our roots by adhering to four conservative principles.

First, private markets must remain free. Healthy people will need to help pay for sick people — that’s how health insurance works — but they must be allowed to choose their own insurance. The ACA coerced the healthy into paying above-market rates for insurance, and so it prohibited the lower-premium catastrophic plans that make sense for most families.

Second, the poor should never pay for government benefits to the wealthy. The main way the ACA tries to help families with pre-existing conditions is by regulating insurance premiums, but that means its benefits are indiscriminate. The young and healthy, many of whom are struggling economically, pay more. The elderly, many of whom need help but some of whom are wealthy, pay less. We should use America’s progressive tax system, where the wealthy pay more in taxes, to implement a means-tested health insurance system that specifically helps the needy. Republicans don’t love taxes, but a hidden tax is worse than a visible one, and it is utter anathema that the ACA moves even a single dollar from the poor to the rich.

Third, redistribution must be transparent. The ACA mainly forces higher costs onto private insurance plans, which invisibly pass those costs to healthy consumers. Democrats may prefer this hidden tax politically, but to abide by conservative principles, a subsidy must come with a budget that can be seen, understood, and voted on.

Fourth, health insurance subsidies must be structured to reduce expenditures over time. Just as welfare should be a bridge to independence for individuals, subsidies should be a bridge to sustainability for the health care industry.

The ACA introduced some promising cost-reductions, like financial responsibility provisions for hospitals and limits on luxury plan tax deductions. The Senate needs to continue these efforts. Subsidized care must be adequate and compassionate, but it should insist on using generic drugs (when available) rather than brand-name ones, and it should not cover newly constructed hospitals or low-value services. Medicine must de-intensify, helping patients receive care at home instead of in hospitals when appropriate and using social workers to meet social needs. We also need to help subsidized patients take more responsibility for their health — showing up for appointments, taking prescribed medications, and, if needed, quitting smoking and receiving treatment for addiction.

In my view, the best way to accomplish these four goals would be through either a federally funded expansion of Medicaid or a federally run high-risk pool, which would offer families a means-tested option to buy in once medical bills reach a certain point. Such a plan would intentionally have high deductibles and copays, but it would offer extra assistance to needy families. The private insurance market would be free to compete on price and quality, innovating new ways to deliver value.

I am not writing to advocate for any specific plan. Instead, I offer conservative principles as a yardstick: Does the program provide compassionate, adequate coverage to the sick? Is it transparent, fair, and sustainable? Are the healthy still free to choose their own insurance?

Republicans can craft sensible, conservative subsidies to protect our most vulnerable citizens while also preventing hidden taxes and blank checks. Kimmel is right: No parents should have to choose between bankruptcy and saving their child’s life. Nor does our nation have to choose between fiscal irresponsibility and compassion for our most vulnerable.