Cain to discuss healthcare vision next week on Capitol Hill

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is scheduled to discuss “his perspective on our current health care system and his health care initiatives for the future” Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

The 45-minute talk is hosted by the Congressional Health Care Caucus, chaired by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas). The session will mark the first time the candidate shares his views on healthcare policy in depth.

{mosads}While viscerally opposed to Democrats’ healthcare reform law – he has vowed to repeal it, like every other Republican candidate – Cain has until recently limited his health policy stance to fiery rhetoric.

During the Fox News/Google debate last month in Orlando, the colon and liver cancer survivor reiterated that he’d be dead if the new law had been in place when he was treated because the government would have micromanaged his care – a statement debunked as “false” by the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.

Cain finally offered an alternative during the Las Vegas debate earlier this month, when he endorsed a House Republican bill that would repeal Obama’s healthcare law and replace it with a new system that includes several leading Republican priorities. The “Empower Patients First Act,” introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), would:

• Allow insurers to sell policies across state lines;

• Limit awards in medical malpractice suits;

• Offer low-income people a refundable tax credit to purchase insurance and give small businesses a credit for offering coverage;

• Expand association health plans that churches and alumni associations offer to their members;

• Let people opt out of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program and instead receive state vouchers for private coverage; and

• Give states $300 million per year to operate high-risk pools for people who have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.