Scott Walker Changes Positions More Often Than a Chameleon Changes Colors (continued)

34.) The Walker Health Care Plan
Governor Scott Walker's health care plan seems to have landed with a giant thud, as virtually no positive commentary has been heard about it. Even the Walker camp is not pushing it as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The plan has a number of serious  flaws, many of which will be addressed in this blog.

*The plan would eliminate many federal ;mandates and it provides tax credits for the uninsured based on age -- not income nor family status. A tax credit of $900 would be provided for those 17-years-of-age and younger, and $3,000 for people between the ages of 50 though 64. Bill Gates would get a tax credit of $3,000 and a young person in a fast-food place might get a credit of $1,200. Walker's tax credit is too small and is not indexed for inflation -- over a decade, close to  a third of its value could be eroded away by inflation. The average deductible for an average plan is now about $2,500.

*Governor :Walker says that no individual need fear being denied coverage, but the catch is that an individual must have maintained continuous, creditable coverage. There is no definition of "maintained," "continuous," "creditable," or even "coverage." If there had been a lapse in coverage, a person could be denied coverage for life.

*Contrary to the ACA, which guarantees that a child may stay on a parent's insurance plan until age 26, the Walker plan is subject to state approval.

*Insurers could impose lifetime caps on payment and annual limits on benefits; also, gender differences in premium payments could reappear.

*Walker hasn't explained how he would pay for the hundreds of billions dollars in increased Medicare spending that wold be triggered by the repeal of the ACA. Since, except for the so-called "Cadillac" tax on high-premium health care insurance plans, all of the ACA taxes would go away with its repeal. Besides the loss of revenue from the loss of ACA taxes, Walker's tax credits would mean a further reduction in income tax revenue. The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that the repeal of the ACA would increase the deficit by at least $137 billion over the next decade. Overall, since Walker would shift more of the responsibility for health care to the states, some states may decide not to assume that extra cost burden.

*The Walker health care insurance plan would block-grant Medicaid to the states, meaning that the states could cancel coverage and ration benefits.

*Governor Scott Walker has said that the Affordable Care Act has has made "an already broken system worse." One of the major goals of the ACA was to significantly reduce the number of the uninsured. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found that the uninsured have been reduced from 14 to 9.2 percent of the U.S. population.

35.) A Miscellany of Scott Walker Items
a.) In 2006, Walker signed a resolution calling on Congress to pass the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, a bill that was denounced at the time by conservatives as amnesty."

b.) Walker also signed a 2002 resolution that called for allowing undocumented working immigrants to obtain legal residency in the U.S.

c.) While being interviewed at the Chatham House in the United Kingdom, Governor Walker refused to answer a question soliciting his position on evolution. It is possible that Walker feared that if he came out  in support of evolution, he may have lost the support of Creationists.