A poll conducted by the GS Strategy Group on behalf of the conservative American Action Network, found that 54 percent of likely voters say they would like to see the president’s signature legislative achievement undergo full repeal or major changes.
This week, the U.S. Senate and then the U.S. House of Representatives will consider a budget resolution for FY 2017. It has no purpose whatsoever except to create a vehicle for the repeal of Obamacare.
Congress should pass this budget resolution. It doesn’t commit anyone to any policy choices at this point. All it does is create reconciliation instructions for the chambers to pass Obamacare repeal shortly after President Trump is inaugurated.
This budget resolution has nothing to do with the actual budget, unlike any budget resolution in memory. All it does is create reconciliation instructions for the chambers to pass Obamacare repeal shortly after President Trump is inaugurated.
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By nearly any measure, ObamaCare has failed: It didn’t lower costs, it didn’t increase choice, middle-class families continue to lose health plans they were promised they could keep, and Americans continue to call for ObamaCare’s repeal.
They spoke loudly again this November, and about 8 out of 10 favor changing ObamaCare significantly or replacing it altogether.
We in Congress hear you, and we have already begun to act.
The Senate is currently working to pass the legislative tools to bring relief to the middle class by repealing this partisan law.
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Republicans warned seven years ago that a health care law passed only by Democrats — with no support from the other party — would struggle to survive. The party-line vote to pass Obamacare, they said, was arrogant and reckless.
Now, the GOP is in charge, and poised to run afoul of its own warnings.
As Republican lawmakers begin to dismantle President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law, awaiting the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, they face the prospect of overhauling the American health insurance system without any help from across the aisle. Democrats appear increasingly determined to offer Trump’s party as little help as possible.
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Obamacare has made America’s $3.2 trillion health-care system more costly and bureaucratic, while still leaving many millions of Americans uninsured. To lower costs and improve care, a healthy dose of competition and deregulation is urgently needed. Here are four steps that Congress and the new Trump administration can take:
KEY FINDINGS
- Repeal Obamacare and transition to catastrophic health-insurance plans linked to expanded Health Savings Accounts
- Enact per-capita Medicaid spending caps
- Create a new conditional-approval framework at the FDA
- Encourage outcomes-based payments
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Official Washington still is struggling to understand and adapt to the populist wave that carried Donald Trump to the White House. Anger and denial linger still, emotions rooted in the social and economic chasm between Trump voters and the political class.
What does this mean for health? The first fight is already shaping up, of course, over Obamacare. The way forward falls on President-Elect Trump, his presumptive HHS Secretary Tom Price (R-GA) and the GOP-controlled Congress to make good on his campaign promise of replacing Obamacare with “something terrific.” This won’t be easy, and the latest reports are that the can might be kicked down the road a few years.
Responding to populist frustrations will require policymakers to recognize that long-held policy assumptions may no longer apply in a rapidly changing economy. These include:
- The link between jobs and coverage. How workers – and seniors — get coverage will evolve.
- The broken link between “health” and health insurance. Regulators will at some point give insurers room to innovate, permitting new forms of coverage that promote health and offer new ways to finance care for chronic conditions.
- The broken link between premium and risk. A health promotion approach will require restoring this link, allowing insurers to encourage and reward healthy behaviors.
- New technology. Technology will one day penetrate the health care regulatory encrustation and dispel the lingering paternalism that regards consumers as incapable of making informed choices about their medical care.
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