WARNING--AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE AND HERITAGE FOUNDATION SUPPORTED!
www.aei.org/files/2012/12/12/-constructing-an-alternative-to-obamacare-key-details-for-a-practical-replacement-program_171532844111.pdf
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/how-to-replace-obamacare
When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly known as "Obamacare"
was signed into law in the spring of 2010, congressional opponents vowed that the fight was not over. The most disastrous features of the new law would not take effect until 2014, leaving time for a concerted campaign to avert catastrophe. The way to spend that time, these opponents argued, was working to "repeal and replace" the law that Congress had just enacted. The "repeal and replace" formulation quickly caught on, but it was not without its critics. That Obamacare should be "repealed" was obvious, given how strenuously conservatives and many independents objected to the new law. But "replace"? Hammering out the details of a new health-care law might easily stir controversy and sow discord, thereby undermining the push for "repeal."
This concern is not unfounded. But repeal will not be enough, for a simple reason: Although Obamacare would worsen many of the problems with our system of health-care financing, that system clearly does call out for serious reform. Despite the widespread public antipathy toward the new health-care law, simply reverting to the pre-Obamacare status quo would be viewed by many Americans, perhaps even most, as unacceptable. After all, a repeal-only approach would leave many of the most grievous flaws in our system of financing health care unaddressed. Chief among them would be steadily rising health-care costs, driven by the same misguided government policies that so evidently demand reform.
If the problems that are today obvious to the public had been addressed by market-oriented policies over the past few decades, there would have been no political opening through which to ram Obamacare. Instead, these problems were allowed to fester; by 2009, they had become so acute that there was strong sentiment, even among some business-oriented conservatives, that "something had to be done." And as the 2010 congressional debate over Obamacare reached its climax, this sentiment — that some action, even an imperfect one, would be better than nothing — likely played a large role in enabling the health-care law to pass. PURE DELUSION ALERT!
This history suggests that, now that Obamacare is with us, the law cannot be reversed without a credible proposal for what should take its place. Those reforms must account for both the strengths and the weaknesses of our health-care system, and must solve the problems that contributed to the demand for Obamacare in the first place. There is room for debate about the particulars of these reforms, and different components of our health-care system will call for different kinds of fixes. What any effective solution must involve, however, is the creation of a true market in health coverage — one that drives efficiency through competition, and places health-care decisions in the hands of consumers and taxpayers, where they belong.
WHAT NEEDS FIXING
PILLARS OF REFORM
TAX REFORM AND HEALTH REFORM
IMPROVING HEALTH CARE FOR THE VULNERABLE (MEDICAID, AKA CHARITY)
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR A CHANGE
IN OTHER WORDS, MORE FREE-MARKET, UNREGULATED CLAPTRAP
James C. Capretta is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Robert E. Moffit is a senior fellow in the Center for Policy Innovation at the Heritage Foundation.
Edit history
Recommendations
0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):
= new reply since forum marked as read