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Conservatives Offer Obamacare Alternatives

August 20, 2015
Editorial

Every day I hear from men and women about the harmful effects of Obamacare on their families. The effects of the President’s takeover of the health care system are well-known: destroyed jobs, increased medical costs, denial of services, and higher insurance premiums for families and individuals in South Carolina’s Second Congressional District and across the country.

We must repeal and replace this broken law to provide quality, affordable health care for our citizens. Many of my Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives talk about repealing Obamacare as well, but we’re often unjustly criticized because people don’t believe that we have an alternative—this is just flat out wrong.

Conservatives are committed to offering choices and alternatives to the President’s liberal agenda, like Obamacare. Each year since 2009, I’ve co-sponsored the Empowering Patients First Act, common sense legislation introduced by House Budget Chairman Tom Price, M.D. This patient-centered alternative replaces Obamacare while putting patients, families, and doctors in charge of healthcare decisions, not Washington. We have nearly twenty doctors serving in Congress with a goal of repealing Obamacare, because they know first-hand how patients are being harmed.

The Empowering Patients First Act focuses on providing access to health coverage for all Americans, stopping out-of-control costs, solving insurance challenges, and improving the healthcare delivery structure. These patient-centered reforms would help individuals and families afford the coverage they want by providing a series of tax credits and deductions. Our solution provides reasonable reforms that save billions of dollars by enacting medical malpractice reform and ending the practice of defensive medicine.

Another critical reform in the Empowering Patients First Act allows you to take your health coverage with you—just like a 401 (k) plan—if you change your job. The Republican alternative to Obamacare solves challenges, rather than than creating more bureaucracy or overreach into our lives.

Conservatives have and will continue to offer alternatives to President Obama’s overreaching, liberal policies. We present alternatives to the “Washington-knows-best,” big government approach by investing in solutions that return authority to the people who know best—local communities and states. When faced with the President’s overreaching, top-down, big government policies and limited government, conservative choices, like the Empowering Patients First Act, the choice is easy. I choose to support American families.

This fall, I am committed to a full repeal of this law—which was based on broken promises—and to repairing the damage left in its wake by passing common-sense solutions that protect jobs and the American people. Sadly, we remember Obamacare’s mastermind, Jonathan Gruber, admitted it passed based on the “stupidity of the American voter.” It is clear—five years of Obamacare is five years too long.

Issues:Economy and Jobs