Why the Hell Did Judd Gregg Release a Health Care Plan?

We have the prevailing “consensus” model of health care championed by the president, Sen. Kennedy, Sen. Baucus and the House committee chairs.  We have the Wyden-Bennett plan, which gets bipartisan kudos.  We have Medicare for All, HR 676, which has strong support in the House and at the grassroots.  We have the Republican alternative Patient’s Choice Act in the House and the Senate.  And now, because no one demanded it, we have a new plan from Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), called the “Coverage, Prevention, Reform” or CPR plan.  Which begs the obvious question:

Why the hell did Judd Gregg need to release a health care plan?

According to the Politico, Gregg’s rationale is, “I stepped back one week and said, ‘Let’s hold it. What would I do if I could do what I thought was most effective?’”  All well and good.  I’m generally positive about United States Senators engaging in the issues of the day, particularly ones that affect so many of their constituents.  But in this case, “engaging” has meant “come up with a health care plan like a 7-year old would play with Leggos.”

Because, honestly, there’s very little new, here.  For a plan that’s hyped as showing Gregg’s “independent style,” it reads like mix and match, or maybe Romney-care Plus.  Take the Massachusetts model, with its state-based exchange, subsidies based on income and individual mandate.  Add a cap on the employer benefits tax exemption similar to what Baucus has toyed with.  Throw in the tax credits of the Patient’s Choice Act or the John McCain plan (OK, a little more generous than that, but still).  Throw in the usual mix of “we need to invest in prevention” and “we need to decrease hospital readmissions” and “we need to incentivize better decisions”, shake it all up, and you basically have a plan that practically reads like a tag cloud of everyone else’s plans.  One detail stands out – allowing HIPAA to pay for wellness programs that  “exceed 20 % of the cost of employee-only coverage under a group health plan.”  That’s literally the only sentence I feel like I haven’t read before.  And you know what?  I’m not sure I understand what it means.

I thought I could at least count on some Frank Luntz-style rhetoric like the Patient’s Choice Act, which spends as much time talking about the ills of government intervention as it does laying out its own plan (which, incidentally, calls for a lot of government intervention.)  Gregg’s plan disappoints here, too.  I thought for sure comparative effectiveness would draw some scorn, but no dice:  “This proposal would require the analysis of health care data for quality and efficiency with the results disseminated to payers, beneficiaries and the public.”  No tirade about disrupting the relationship between a doctor and a patient with the fruit from your tree of forbidden effectiveness research?  Sheesh.  I can’t even give Gregg style points for the CPR abbreviation, since that too is merely following on the heels of Conservatives for Patients Rights.

So what was the point?  Gregg sits on the Senate Finance Committee and sits in on the closed door discussions for drafting the committee health care bill.  He could also have made waves by “defecting” to the Patient’s Choice Act, but didn’t.  Heck, he could have had influence as Obama’s Secretary of Commerce before he declared a “do over” on his nomination.  And, as the interview reminds us, he’s not running for re-election.  So how does he benefit for making headlines for a day only to have his plan immediately go to the dustbin of history?

Much like Arlen Specter in general or Ben Nelson’s sudden openness to the public health insurance option, the most the Gregg health care reform plan indicates is which way the wind is blowing.