Focus on the Issues Series: Santorum on health care
Like the other GOP presidential candidates, Rick Santorum’s main priority in regards to health care is to repeal “Obamacare.”
Santorum made this clear, and also blasted fellow GOP candidate Mitt Romney, as the Supreme Court began oral arguments about Obama’s health care plan in March, saying:
“If we make this the central issue in the campaign and we're successful, there's no doubt that Obamacare will be repealed in one form or another," Santorum said. "That's not going to be the case with Governor Romney."
Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, says he will replace the Affordable Care Act with a plan driven by the market and that will increase health care access and affordability through patient-centered alternatives, rather than government mandates, according to his website.
Santorum says he will reduce health care costs by creating more competition and encouraging electronic records.
Americans will no longer be forced to depend on their jobs for health coverage. Santorum plans to allow citizens to purchase their own health care coverage with pre-tax dollars, including a refundable tax credit so there is increased portability of affordable coverage.
Santorum believes patients should be more literate with health care terms so they have more power about what kind of coverage best suits their needs.
According to his website, Santorum’s health care plan also includes:
1. Allow patients to purchase health insurance across state lines to gain access to the best insurance coverage to fit their individual needs -- patients shouldn’t be required to pay for (and subsidize for others) coverage for services they don’t want or need.
2. Block-grant Medicaid so that states aren’t burdened by unfunded, crippling, one-size-fits-all federal mandates, so that states can implement solutions to address their unique health care needs.
3. Enact meaningful medical liability reform to increase access, and reduce added costs and inefficiencies from defensive medicine for federal programs
Samantha Glavin is a Spring 2012 Paste BN College Correspondent. Learn more about her here.
This story originally appeared on the Paste BN College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.