Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) and House Republicans on Tuesday introduced legislation that aims to lower healthcare costs and fix the “disaster” that is Obamacare.
Pfluger introduced the More Affordable Care Act (MACA), the House companion legislation to Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) bill, which Breitbart News detailed at the Breitbart Fight Club.
“America’s health care system is broken, plagued by skyrocketing costs and declining patient outcomes. The Democrats’ Obamacare disaster completely failed to deliver on its core promises, and Republicans must fix it,” Pfluger, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), said in a statement to Breitbart News.
The legislation would establish:
- Trump Health Freedom Accounts, Health Savings Account-style accounts that ensure that federal healthcare dollars go straight to patients and not insurance companies
- Options for plans that would create market-driven incentives to bring down costs
- Options to allow Americans to shop across state lines wtih the creation of a state waiver program to increase competition in the health insurance market
- Enhance and codify Trump’s executive order to increase healthcare price transparency
Pfluger continued:
The More Affordable Care Act will lower costs, expand consumer choice, and increase transparency for patients. By establishing Health Freedom Accounts and a Health Freedom Waiver Program, we’re putting health care decisions back where they belong: in the hands of American families, not Washington bureaucrats. This legislation will also provide small businesses with critical tax relief to encourage employer-sponsored coverage and will lock in price transparency for patients. The American people deserve better than throwing more money at a failed system, and this legislation delivers the commonsense solutions they expect.
Trump has called to send federal healthcare dollars straight to the American people so that they can use their money according to their needs. He wrote:
I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over.
“In other words, take from the BIG, BAD Insurance Companies, give it to the people, and terminate, per Dollar spent, the worst Healthcare anywhere in the World, ObamaCare,” the president added.
Healthcare price transparency has been a cornerstone of Trump’s healthcare reforms.
Breitbart News wrote:
Economists Steve Forbes, Arthur Laffer, and Larry Van Horn wrote in an op-ed in 2020 that Trump’s reform could help families save up to $11,000 per family each year. The economists also noted that Singapore has system-wide healthcare price transparency, and it spends 75 percent less per capita than the United States.
Then-Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), a longtime advocate for price transparency, has said that enshrining Trump’s transparency rules would be “bigger than Obamacare.”
He and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a chief proponent for Medicare for All and chairman of the Senate Health Committee, introduced the Health Care Price Transparency Act.
The legislation, if it were to be included in a Trump healthcare reform package, would ensure that hospitals fully comply with the Trump transparency rules.
The legislation has a number of House cosponsors.
Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL), a cosponsor, said in a statement, “We’re putting patients — not bureaucrats or insurance companies — back in charge of their healthcare,”
“With Trump Health Freedom Accounts, competition across state lines, expanded access to employer-sponsored health insurance, and price transparency, this legislation empowers Americans to make informed healthcare decisions, increases choice and competition, and lowers healthcare costs,” Bean added. “This is America First healthcare, and under House Republican leadership, we’re fixing the broken system.”
Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND) said:
The last 15 years are proof: the Democrats’ so-called Affordable Care Act did not achieve its core goal of lowering costs. Instead, families face higher premiums and fewer choices,” said Rep. Fedorchak. “The More Affordable Care Act reverses the failures of our broken model by redirecting existing ACA subsidies into Health Freedom Accounts. This will give patients the freedom to shop for coverage, manage their own health care dollars, and make informed decisions that will lower costs.
“I am excited to be a part of this opportunity to enact meaningful health care reform. The Affordable Care Act has been anything but affordable and has resulted in higher prices and fewer options for everyone,” Rep. Jim Baird (R-IN) said.
“The reforms in this bill will codify President Trump’s successful agenda and increase free market competition to provide people with better services, lower prices, and more innovative options so people can choose health plans that work best for them.”
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