The health care system in the U.S. needs reform, no question, but it needs the type of reform that makes the system better, not worse. As more and more people have now realized, Obamacare is nothing more than Medicaid expansion. Wyoming Liberty Group’s battle to stop the implementation of Obamacare in Wyoming has made it a leader in health care reform. That expertise is now spreading to other states, giving them the tools to fight off the Obamacare Goliath.
Our neighbor Montana is a good example of a state that is using the tools developed by the Wyoming Liberty Group’s policy expert, Regina Meena, to hold its own against the forces of socialized medicine. Carl Graham, the CEO of the Montana Policy Institute, explains in a radio interview what real health care reform is and how to fix the system using these tools.
Mr. Graham says there are three measures that define real heath care reform: it increases health insurance coverage and health care access; it increases the quality of health care; and it gets health care costs under control.
Obamacare fails on all three of these measures. It will force more people to have insurance, but as we saw here in Wyoming, the cost will be higher. Not only that, just because people have insurance doesn’t mean they will have access to health care. If the supply of health services is rationed, people will have access to a waiting list, which is not access to care.
Obamacare reforms will also likely mean less quality. If the government takes away profits and limits competition, health service providers have no incentive to improve the way they do things.
Obamacare’s costs have been grossly underestimated. The federal government originally said the cost would be under $940 billion over 10 years but the Congressional Budget Office says the cost will be at least $1.76 trillion during that period.
So if we want real health care reform, how do we fix the system?
The key is putting consumers back in control of their health care choices. Real reform would mean consumers themselves would make decisions that meet their needs, together with a safety net (not hammock) for those without the means to help themselves.
Regina Meena, at the Wyoming Liberty Group has developed a Five-Point plan to do achieve real health care reform. As Regina says, “The key to this plan is returning health insurance to the private insurance market, where auto, property, life and supplemental health currently function. These insurance products are viable, affordable and work for us.”
How do we get there?
1. We need more competition. Obamacare has started the consolidation of the health care industry, which means less competition. The tool to achieve more competition, one fully supported by the Wyoming Liberty Group and the vast majority of Wyoming legislators, is cross border insurance sales. If the insurance industry can sell in Wyoming the same insurance policy it sells in other states, and can pool the risk over a larger population, the cost of insurance will go down in Wyoming.
2. We need more insurance options. For example, people should be free to choose policies with higher deductibles, or policies that provide only catastrophic coverage.
Other improvements include: a reduction in mandates, greater transparency and certain tort reform.
If we want to defeat this Goliath permanently, we must clarify the relationship between government and the people. Socialized medicine is a Utopian solution that is supposed to equalize health outcomes. But to make people ‘equal’ the government has to treat people differently. It raises costs to some so it can give their hard-earned income to others; and is it fair to force some to pay more to lower costs to others, especially when it reduces access to health care for everyone at the same time?
We need real health care reform, one that increases quality and lowers costs.
Let’s face it, Obamacare is more about redistribution and control than curing a sick health care system.
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