Myth: Republicans Are Not Offering Alternatives To Obamacare.

Source: FreedomWorks

1. Health care decisions should be made between patients and their doctors – the government should never have a say. Nothing is more personal and particular to an individual than their health. Every person is different, with different needs, different preferences, and different responses to treatment. Doctors are trained to take these individual differences into account, and many develop lasting relationships with their patients. Any efforts to reform the health care system must allow patients and their doctors to maintain absolute control of health care decisions.

2. Increasing access is about more than having an insurance policy. We need lower costs and higher quality care. Markets are superior to top-down control because only the price system allows businesses and consumers to adjust their behavior in real-time as conditions change. Companies have to respond to the demands of their customers, and customers dissatisfied with a company’s practices can take their business elsewhere in search of a better deal. Having an insurance policy is meaningless if you can’t afford the deductible, or if 3 you can’t see a doctor. Meaningful health care reform must focus on creating the right incentives for competition, innovation, and adaptability—all of which drive down costs and increase quality of care.

3. Tax policy shouldn’t favor individuals or companies with regard to purchasing health insurance. Current policy provides tax benefits for companies that spend money on health insurance plans for their employees. Individuals, however, do not share the same benefit. Granting individuals the same tax treatment as corporations would be a meaningful step towards creating insurance plans that are designed for people instead of businesses. This policy will also help shield workers who change jobs.

4. Regulation of private health insurance should be done by the states, not federal government. ObamaCare eliminates a state’s ability to compete within the health care marketplace by imposing a onesize-fits-all mandate on insurance companies across the country. The result of this has been dropped policies, increased costs, and reduced services. Patient–centered health care reform must restore states’ abilities to control insurance regulations within their own borders, allowing states to adopt policies that work best for their citizens.

5. Medicare should allow seniors an array of plan options, and an opportunity to opt out if they choose. No matter their age, we believe everyone deserves health care choices. Currently, seniors are offered one option – Medicare. This type of planning crowds out private alternatives that could provide better care. Worse, Medicare penalizes seniors who want to opt out – effectively trapping most in the program. Seniors should be allowed to opt out of Medicare if they choose. Government should allow private companies to offer a variety of plans that will ensure that seniors can get better quality care at prices they can afford.

6. Medicaid should move towards a state-controlled model where the states have flexibility to innovate and find ways to deliver better quality care with their Medicaid dollars. ObamaCare makes a concerted effort to drive millions of Americans into Medicaid—some of whom were forced in after their private health insurance was cancelled. However, because Medicaid payments to doctors are so low, patients face longer wait times for appointments—if they find a doctor who will even take Medicaid at all. In the few states that have been granted even limited ability to introduce patient-centered reforms to their Medicaid programs, the results have been promising. Giving Medicaid fully over to the states will lead to more responsible spending, tailored to the diverse needs of individual states, and will increase low-income patients’ access to and quality of care. Since state legislatures are closer to the people they represent, they will always be better stewards of tax dollars than the federal government.

7. Patients should be incentivized to save and spend their own money (tax-free) on health care through health savings accounts. This would encourage price transparency from health care providers, foster price competition, and lower costs. People are more responsible with their own money than with other peoples’ money. The current health insurance model prevents patients from ever seeing the true cost of the medical services they consume. Someone else is paying the bills, so there’s no incentive to shop around for the best price. As a result, there’s little reason for doctors to advertise their prices and compete with one another, since most patients are more or less indifferent to the actual costs of care paid by insurance companies. Health savings accounts (HSAs) offer a solution to this problem. By having a tax-free account available for health care spending, patients will be sensitive to high prices and seek the best deal for their money. HSAs also motivate health care providers to be more transparent in their pricing, and to compete with one another to provide the best care for the lowest cost.

8. The abuses of the medical malpractice system must be addressed at the state level. Most people now recognize that the medical malpractice system is broken. Doctors are forced to pay astronomical premiums for malpractice insurance, and are incentivized to order unnecessary tests and drugs out of fear of being sued for negligence. The inherent risk of the field has been taken by too many courts as a consequence of bad doctors, when in most instances this is simply not the case. The result is high prices and a misallocation of medical resources resulting from “defensive medicine.” The medical malpractice system must be reformed, but changes need to be implemented at the state level. A blanket policy from the federal government would violate the right of states to regulate their own tort law.

9. Accommodate individuals with pre-existing conditions at the state level. The population that ObamaCare was supposed to take care of—those most in need of assistance—are individuals with chronic health conditions that require constant (and expensive) maintenance care. These individuals make up only a small fraction of our population, but were used to justify a wholesale change in every single patient’s insurance. While a federal solution would interfere with the states’ ability to manage their own insurance markets, states can set up systems as they see fit – whether through high-risk or risk-transfer pools (or other policy means), to ensure that patients with pre-existing conditions have access to health insurance.

10. ObamaCare must be dismantled entirely – there is nothing about the Affordable Care Act that encourages either freedom or affordability in health care. Opinion polls show that the law has been consistently unpopular with the American people. Despite all these problems, there are still those who argue that the Affordable Care Act can be salvaged, that it can be fixed. Wrong. There is nothing about ObamaCare that increases choice, fosters competition, lowers prices, or improves the quality of medical care. Additionally, it violates individual rights by compelling people to buy a product they don’t want.