The Winning Alternative: Replacing Obamacare as it Implodes

It’s been nearly five years since Obamacare (ACA) was signed into law. Yet, it still remains wildly unpopular, still making it an albatross around Democrats’ necks.

The conclusion Gallup’s Justin McCarthy draws:

“Americans have never been overly positive toward the ACA, at best showing a roughly equal division between approval and disapproval early on in the law’s implementation. The percentage of Americans who approve of the law represents a new numerical low, which could indicate a loss of faith in the law amid the aftermath of the 2014 midterms.”

Now, as we are just learning, ACA actually costs $50,000 in taxpayer money for every American who gets health insurance. This Stunning figure comes from Congressional Budget Office report that revised cost estimates for the next 10 years. According to the Daily Mail:

• Government will spend $1.993 TRILLION over a decade and take in $643 BILLION in new taxes, penalties and fees related to Obamacare.

• The $1.35 trillion net cost will result in ‘between 24 million and 27 million’ fewer Americans being uninsured – a $50,000 price tag per person at best.

• The law will still leave ‘between 29 million and 31 million’ nonelderly Americans without medical insurance.

• Numbers assume Obamacare insurance exchange enrollment will double between now and 2025.

And while some Americans have actually seen their premiums go down under Obamacare, others are seeing their premiums increasing as much as 78% (to cover “essential health benefits”).

Many Americans have also lost the health insurance plans they really liked (the insurance coverage the president repeatedly ‘promised’ they could keep), and were forced onto the Obamacare exchanges. Nothing like a government health program that FORCES you to do something, right?

Not to mention the IPAB board (A.KA. “death panel”) deciding what healthcare is best for you and your family, and the egregious mandates that violate your first amendment, and the endless regulations that push independent physicians out of private practice. And, of course, the slew of tax hikes.

Retired neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson, says,

“One of the first things you do to fundamentally change a society like ours is you take control of people’s healthcare because that’s the most important thing that they have, and if you can get control that, you can get control of everything else. That’s why I have been vehemently against the healthcare program that the president has put forth.”

Many of us knew from the very beginning that Obamacare had little to do with healthcare, and much more to do with control. This was all part of the “fundamental transformation of America,” after all. A strong centralized government. Of course, as Obamacare architect, Jonathon Gruber, ever so candidly explained, ACA proponents were relying on Americans being ‘too stupid to know’.

Having said all this, the onerous healthcare law may be still actually implode on its own, be repealed, or even be tossed out by the Supreme Court in June.

So, NOW would be an excellent time for Conservatives to not only propose a winning alternative to Obamacare, but to also use every possible forum to plug their winning alternative to Americans.

While most Americans want to see Obamacare repealed, they don’t want to yank newly obtained insurance away from millions of their fellow Americans. That’s why it is critical for Conservatives to advance their winning alternative that alleviates this concern and leads to Obamacare’s ultimate defeat.

From The 2017 Project:

There are three main reasons why advancing an alternative is so important: 1. Politically, one can’t expect to beat something with nothing. 2. Policy-wise, our health-care system already needed to be fixed pre-Obamacare, as the government had already broken it, and 3. If Obamacare continues to unravel but Conservatives offer no viable alternative, liberals will seize that opening to push for the government monopoly over American medicine (“single payer”) that they have always desired. 

Also from The Project 2017:

“A winning alternative needs to be something that can be sold to the American people on the political stump, and it must address all three of the Americans’ core goals for real-health-care reform: lowering costs, dealing with pre-existing conditions, and significantly increasing the number of people who are insured versus the pre-Obamacare status quo.

A well-conceived Conservative alternative would be able to make the following winning claim: Under the Conservative plan, health costs would drop, liberty would be secured, and any American who wants to buy health insurance would be able to do so.”

The 2017 Project proposes alternatives such as:

• Ending the unfairness in the Tax Code-by offering tax credits to the Uninsured and the Individually Insured: A refundable health insurance tax credit that would go directly to individuals or families, not to insurance companies like Obamacare’s subsidies do. The tax credits can be used to buy any real insurance that people might want, not merely the insurance the president thinks they should have.

• Solving the problem of expensive pre-existing conditions: Making sure no one could be dropped from existing insurance, or be re-priced, due to a health condition (to learn more, go to: 2017Project.org).

• Lowering health costs across the board: While Obamacare hikes costs, this alternative would lower them by: providing tax credits to breathe new life into the individual market; letting those who don’t use their full tax credit deposit the rest in a health savings account (HAS); making it easier to use HSA’s by loosening the regulations governing them; offering a 1-time $1,000 tax credit for anyone in State A to buy insurance from State B that meets State B’s (rather than State A’s) rules regarding coverage, pricing, etc.; Closing the high-end tax-loophole for employer-based insurance by letting those with plans that cost more then $20k/family or $8k/individual only write off costs up to that tally; ending longstanding restrictions on offering lower-cost plans to those with healthier lifestyles; calling upon states to enact sensible medical malpractice reforms.

From The 2017 Project:  “Such an alternative would be a huge victory for Americans’ health care, their pocketbooks, and their liberty.”