Good news about the “Obamacare Replacement Act”

Ask your reps to join the new co-sponsors for the “Obamacare Replacement Act?” Retweet

Senator Rand Paul’s “Obamacare Replacement Act” (S. 222) is gaining traction. It has a new co-sponsor in the Senate — Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Even better…

The bill has also been introduced in the House (H.R. 1072) by Representative Mark Sanford of South Carolina, and it already has 7 Republican, co-sponsors…

• Jeff Duncan [SC-3]
• Mark Meadows [NC-11]
• Paul A. Gosar [AZ-4]
• Thomas A. Garrett, Jr. [VA-5]
• Alexander X. Mooney [WV-2]
• Thomas Massie [KY-4]
• Matt Gaetz [FL-1]

Please instruct your rep and your two senators to become co-sponsors, or thank your rep if he is on the list, or thank Senator Toomey if you live in Pennsylvania. The hardwired letter to congress for this campaign reads…

Co-sponsor Senator Rand Paul’s “Obamacare Replacement Act” (S. 222), or the House version, H.R. 1072.

You can copy or edit this sample text for your personal letter to Congress…

Please also support S. 554, the “Obamacare Repeal Act.” This is the exact same bill Republicans passed in 2016. If the GOP was willing to pass it then, they should be willing to pass it now. More importantly…

The GOP won control of Congress by PROMISING to repeal Obamacare. Voters gave you the power. Now you must keep your promise. Taken together, S. 554 and S. 222 (H.R. 1072) will give us better and cheaper healthcare. Specifically, S. 222 (H.R. 1072) would…

* Provide a two-year buffer period in which people with pre-existing conditions (PEC) could still get coverage. That would allow time for the market to solve the PEC problem in other ways (as described below).

* Make the cost of individual insurance tax-deductible. This would give individual policies the same tax treatment as employer-provided policies. Most likely, the number of individually owned policies would expand. With more people owning their own policy, the PEC problem would plummet. PEC is mostly a politician-created problem that happens when people get sick after losing their job (and therefore their insurance).

* Give citizens a tax credit of up to $5,000 for contributions to an HSA (Health Savings Account).

* Eliminate the ceiling on HSA contributions.

* Remove the stipulation that you must have a high-deductible healthcare plan in order to have an HSA.

* Allow citizens to use HSA funds for insurance premiums.

* Expand the number of things HSA funds could be used for, including over-the-counter drugs, vitamins and supplements, plus nutrition and exercise programs. One of the great flaws of Obamacare is that it does nothing to preserve health and prevent disease. Doing so would lower the burden on the medical system. Healthier people don’t need as much medical care.

* Allow citizens to band together to lower the cost of buying insurance. Individual Health Pools (IHPs) would give individuals the same bargaining power that employer insurance groups currently have. The IHPs could include churches, alumni associations, trade associations, civic groups, or entities formed strictly for establishing an IHP. This provision would dramatically reduce the PEC problem.

* Allow physicians to band together to gain bargaining power with insurers, without having to consolidate into big, impersonal medical firms.

* Allow doctors to deduct the expense of the uncompensated care they provide, thereby making pro bono services, free clinics, and true charity hospitals more plentiful.

* Allow insurance providers to sell policies nationally. This would remove the cartel control that the insurance industry currently maintains through state legislatures. This would also restore the market for major medical plans. Not only are major medical plans the way insurance is supposed to work, they are also a way to make insurance more affordable and attractive to young healthy people. This is important because it’s mostly the young who lack coverage. Obamacare coerced young people to buy expensive plans. But Rand Paul’s plan will attract them by offering them a good deal, without using force.

* Give states flexibility in how they design and manage their Medicaid programs. This would enable experimentation and competition between the 50 states. It would also allow the states to innovate new ways to address the PEC problem.

In short, I think Rand Paul’s bill should become the official Republican replacement bill. Do it.

– END OF SAMPLE LETTER–

Note: You may have a Rep or Senator that is not current. We’re scheduled, this weekend, to test the new Downsize DC website! That’s why we’re not diverting money or time into updating our current software. But action cannot wait. Your letter will still be delivered to the other incumbents, so please send it.

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Thanks for being an ACTIVE DC Downsizer,

Perry Willis & Jim Babka Downsize DC