Ed Gillespie: Replace this flawed law
The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" — increases health costs, federal spending and government control. It reduces job growth, patient choice and the quality of care. We need to replace it with patient-centered, market-oriented reforms.
In Virginia alone, it has been estimated that up to 250,000 people will lose their existing health care coverage this fall and be forced to pay more.
The alternative I support (modeled after the plan put out by the 2017 Project) would provide a tax credit to everyone who buys health insurance in the individual market. Those with employer-provided insurance already get a tax break, and those who buy insurance on their own should, too.
A family of four with 40-year-old parents could claim an annual tax credit of $6,000. It would be like having an additional $6,000 a year in cash to spend on health insurance. If your plan cost less than $6,000, you could put the difference in a health savings account you would control.
According to the federal government's own figures, these tax credits would enable any healthy person in Virginia to buy insurance even if she didn't supplement the credit with any of her own money.
Those who have insurance bought through Obamacare could keep it, using their new tax credits to help pay for it. Or they could shop for a lower-priced plan and a better value.
Anyone put on Medicaid under Obamacare could use her tax credit to purchase personal insurance. Those with expensive pre-existing conditions could get affordable insurance from federally funded, state-run "high risk" pools.
And my plan protects people with pre-existing conditions from being dropped from a plan or being re-priced.
My alternative would save $1.1 trillion in federal spending vs. Obamacare over 10 years, cut premiums and enhance access to doctors, and increase the number of people with private insurance by 6 million.
Reforms like these would address the concerns Obamacare was passed to help fix, without the negative impact being felt across the country as a result of that terribly flawed law.
Former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie is the GOP candidate for Senate in Virginia.