Are Republicans for or Against Health Savings Accounts? Town Hall Crowd Boo’s Republican Rep. Webster for stream of ObamaCare Lies.

Republicans are big on health savings accounts, the high deductible insurance option where people pay between $5,000 and $12000 out-of-pocket before insurers spend one penny. It doesn't contain costs but does allow for self-rationing, where people withhold the care they need because they just can’t afford it.

Florida Republican Rep. Daniel Webster unintentionally trashes health savings accounts to make his case against ObamaCare. Webster describes health savings accounts to the letter, but this time, it’s the worst part of the Affordable Care Act…an outrage, right?

Webster resumed his remarks, explaining to people that even if they are able to get health care plans with lower premiums, they will end up paying more “out of pocket,” a charge that audience was clearly not buying.

“Now you’re going to be able to buy a policy that is very cheap, but now you’re going to have $20,000…$10,000. That’s not very cheap.”

That’s a health savings account. Thank you Rep. Webster for your inadvertent honesty. But the reporters and media professionals don’t know the simple basics of health care to recognize the rank hypocrisy and absurdity of Webster’s phony outrage. Personally, I don't think he even knows, since he probably didn't read the Affordable Care Act: 

But Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) got more than he bargained for this week when he faced an angry crowd in Winter Haven, Florida, who urged him to “stop lying” about Obamacare. The town hall crowd grumbled “misleading,” until Webster got to his main point. “I believe that Obamacare is bad for America,” the congressman said, “and so does the president.” At that point, the town hall audience exploded into objection, with one loud voice asking, “What about the seniors in your district?” Another voice chimed in with, “What about us?”

An event official had to step in to ask the crowd to quiet down … before one man shouted, “Well, tell him to stop lying!” followed by “You want to shut us up.”

As far as the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, rationing treatment in Medicare; the law says it can't. But that doesn't stop Webster from making the ridiculous claim that someone's already proposed barring hip replacement surgery under Medicare..."here's your wheel chair:"

Audience member: "How do you know that?"

Webster: "I know it's going to happen, because it's already been proposed." 

I'd like to know who proposed that, since IPAD members haven't been appointed yet.

But if IPAB is bad, then what makes all the mini insurer IPAB's good, the free market?

Health Care Blog: IPAB may be beyond the reach of politics, but that also puts it beyond the reach of the highest bidder.

This is exactly how it works with many of the hundreds of mini-IPABs operating today across the health insurance industry, in secret. That’s right — we already have IPAB, in miniature, all doing the exact same things; they’re just not called that. One of health care’s many dirty little secrets: there are dozens of Boards of “faceless bureaucrats” making decisions about our medical care right now, one for every health insurer of any significance. They operate in secret, they may or may not have any doctors involved, and they are accountable only to the insurer’s executives and shareholders.

Good fiscal medicine all the way around? Of course. But it may be too bitter a pill for the opponents of Obamacare to swallow.

A little known truth about high deductible plans: I had such a plan, and never could put the money, $9,500 in this case, into the savings account because I didn't have it. I had to gamble with my family’s financial well-being. And I’m sure I wasn't alone. But that seems okay with Republicans, our family friendly party, to hang their constituents out to dry serving insurers.