Quick Links: Why RI should Opt-out of Exchanges & Medicaid expansion;  A Healthcare Freedom Act for RI; RI Should Tread Slowly re. Exchanges;   The Ocean State Current: Is RI Creating a “Dependency Portal” for social services? ; Uncertainty Over Obamacare Bedevils Business Community;   RI Exchange Director does not Understand Free-Markets ;  2011 OSPRI brief on HealthCare Exchanges vs Interstate Sales Compacts ;  Fast Facts on Healthcare Exchanges (OSPRI, 2011)
 

A New Opportunity to Reform Healthcare for Rhode Islanders

Despite the US Supreme Court’s decision that the individual mandate and President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is constitutional, the ruling presents a new opportunity for the state of Rhode Island to identify patient-centered healthcare reforms that increase access to quality care and affordable insurance … a goal most Ocean Staters can agree with.

However the US Supreme Court rules, health care remedies are required for the sick, the poor, and all Americans stuck in this broken system. State and local governments must lead the way. For 70 years, Congress has been passing laws to “fix” health care. Instead they have compounded the problems.

Healthcare is a highly personal issue for most Americans. Until we achieve our goals, we must continually explore new reform concepts that increase competition and consumer choice so that prices can eventually begin to fall.

Earlier this year, our Center issued a warning that our state should tread slowly regarding the implementation of PPACA health insurance exchanges in Rhode Island, especially given all its political, fiscal, and legal uncertainty.

Our Center has published a Policy Brief discussing the pitfalls of the government-run federal plan as opposed with more common-sense, market-based, state level options … what we call a Healthcare Freedom Act for Rhode Island.

Read the Executive Summary here … or download a PDF copy of the entire brief by clicking here.

More discussion on the PPACA

President Obama wanted to make sure that every individual had health coverage. That is a worthy goal. But in practice, it just doesn’t work. It created a trillion-dollar government takeover of much of the healthcare and health insurance markets and gave too much control to Washington and not enough control to patients and their doctors.

The simple truth is that the president’s law is unaffordable and doesn’t deliver the real reform for Americans that he promised.

It’s unaffordable. According to a recent study by a Trustee on the Medicare Board, the President’s healthcare law is projected to add $530 billion to federal deficits and increase spending by more than $1.15 trillion over the next decade.

  • Americans wanted real reform, but the President’s law just isn’t it. More Washington spending is not the way to control healthcare costs for all Americans.

State Exchange adds yet another bureaucracy to RI. Millions more dollars that RI cannot afford to oversee insurance sales when the free-market does this for “free”; if the market is allowed to work without the mandates and inter-state sales bans currently in place.

It’s irresponsible and wasteful. Rather than making common sense reforms, the President’s healthcare takes $500 billion from Medicare’s trust fund to pay for new Washington spending and does little to combat the waste, fraud and abuse in the system.

  • Real healthcare reform is reform that is efficient, effective and patient-­centered. A wasteful,  Washington-­centered plan is simply not what Americans want or need.

It’s unaccountable. Buried inside President Obama’s 2,700-page healthcare bill was the creation of a new board – called “IPAB,” a 15-member board of unelected healthcare bureaucrats in charge of making decisions about your access to healthcare.

  • The President’s plan gives too much control to Washington. Healthcare reform must be patient centered, giving patients and their doctors full control over their personal healthcare decisions.

We can do better. Let’s bring everyone together, Democrats, Moderates, and Republicans, to find the best ideas that produce real results. Let’s work to replace the Healthcare Exchanges mandated for Rhode Island in this bill with a patient-­centered approach that can deliver real reform for Ocean Staters.

More related stories:  NFIB OpEd: Obamacare yet another blow to small business (Independent Contractors)

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