AUSTIN –The Texas Public Policy Foundation this evening released a summary of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Obamacare repeal and replace legislation. The detailed summary, by TPPF Senior Healthcare Analyst Chris Jacobs, explains how the bill falls short of making good on the promise to fully repeal Obamacare and fails to fundamentally change federal control over supply and demand of healthcare:

  • This plan fails to repeal most of the costly mandates and insurance regulations driving up premiums and deductibles.
  • This plan replaces Obamacare’s subsidy scheme with a new costly federal entitlement in the form of a refundable tax credit.
  • This plan leaves significant portions of the flawed and costly Medicaid expansion intact by delaying the freeze on Medicaid enrollment, maintaining the expansion of the program to the able-bodied, and providing a pathway for non-expansion states to accept enhanced federal dollars. 

To read the full summary, please visit: http://txpo.li/2mZvs1W

TPPF’s Center for Tenth Amendment Action Director Chip Roy stated:

“Congressional leadership had the opportunity to transform the American healthcare system to enable truly affordable healthcare for all Americans. While they took some positive steps such as sunsetting some of the expensive regulations (at a future date) and repealing the individual and employer mandates – the bill as drafted remains unworkable, expensive, Washington-centered and cannot become law. 

“Rather than honoring their commitment to fully repeal Obamacare and instead of fully respecting the people and the states to make healthcare decisions, we are offered more of the same doomed-to-fail Washington-centric ‘solutions’ that have created the current healthcare crisis and which empower insurance companies and government over people and doctors.

“President Trump has the opportunity to pursue a better way, which starts with honoring the commitment to fully repeal this disastrous law and ends when people can get the affordable healthcare of their choice unencumbered by federal mandates.”

TPPF’s Center for Health Care Policy Dr. Deane Waldman said:

"The problem with the GOP plan is that it ignores what is important in healthcare – care not insurance – and refuses to fix why healthcare is failing: federal government control."

Last week, TPPF sent a letter to the Texas Congressional Delegation outlining key principles for renewing American healthcare. The principles are centered on the full repeal of Obamacare and restoring the Constitutional role of the states in regulating healthcare. To read the principles, please visit: http://txpo.li/2l8VdzW

Chris Jacobs is Senior Healthcare Policy Analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Chip Roy is Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Action at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Dr. Deane Waldman, MD, MBA, is Director of the Center for Health Care Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. 

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin, Texas.

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