Does the American public know that, buried deep in the Healthcare.gov website, the health insurance coverage available to a family gets worse as their income rises? Do people know that a family expecting to earn $51,000 in 2016 is not even allowed to buy the same coverage as a family that expects to earn $49,000?
Repealing the Affordable Care Act is not enough. The country has been drifting toward full federal control of health care for decades. What’s needed is a credible plan to reorient federal policy across the board toward markets and the preferences of consumers and patients, and away from one-size-fits-all bureaucratic micromanagement.
Lanhee Chen and James Capretta, along with 8 other colleagues, have developed such a plan. This plan would:
– Retain employer coverage for 155 million Americans
– Provide age-adjusted tax credits to individuals without employer-sponsored coverage
– Allow for continuous coverage protection
– Reform the Medicaid and Medicare programs
– Expand the use of Health Savings Accounts