Abstract
/ Summary
POINTS
#1-5: CHANGES TO OBAMACARE: Repeal the individual and employer
mandate, and other mandates. Repeal Obamacare in its totality, and
replace it on the same day. Repeal the provision of Obamacare that
lets people stay on their parents' insurance plans until they turn
26. Allow total state control over Medicaid and Medicare, advocating
significant means-tested tax credits that are refundable for those
living in poverty.
POINTS
#6-7: INCREASED ACCESSIBILITY OF INSURANCE: Expand health savings
accounts. Make health insurance portable by addressing employer- and
location-based discrepancies in coverage. Legalize the interstate
sale and purchase of non-group and small-group health insurance.
Account for the resulting need to increase policyholders' price
leverage by allowing people to join into group insurance pools,
including on the basis of profession or trade. De-link employment
from insurance by keeping all types of health insurance taxes low,
and dismantle health firms' privileges in order to curb cronyism.
POINTS
#8-12: INCREASED AFFORDABILITY OF CARE: Liberalize drug importation
by reducing tariffs and patent protections. Repeal taxes on the sales
and profits of medical devices to increase affordability and diminish
the apparent necessity of tort reform. Repeal the Obamacare provision
that prohibits denial of care on the basis of pre-existing
conditions. Address the resulting pre-existing conditions coverage
gap by encouraging state solutions, incentivizing free care through
non-refundable tax credits, and allowing the implementation of
professional consequences for breaking promises to never deny care on
the basis of inability to pay.
The 12 Points
1.
REPEAL THE MANDATES: Stop playing political games, solve the issue
already, and repeal all of the Obamacare mandates. Repeal the
individual insurance purchase mandate, the employer-sponsored
insurance purchase mandate, the minimum coverage standard mandate,
and the benefit mandate in-full. Also address community regulations
and the manner in which health insurance plans are categorized.
2.
FULL REPEAL, & REPLACE SAME-DAY: Repeal each of the even key
provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Repeal
the entirety of Obamacare, and on the same day, replace the rest of
Obamacare with Points #2-12.
3.
REPEAL THE 26-YEAR-OLDS PROVISION: Repeal the provision of Obamacare
that requires health insurers offering family coverage to allow young
people to stay on their parents' health insurance plans until they
turn 26. Oppose Paul Ryan's proposed tax credits that benefit the
elderly and married people, providing tax credits on a different
basis.
4.
STATE MEDICAID SELF-DIRECTION: Oppose extending the expansion of
Medicaid; but choose block-granting Medicaid to the states over
reforming Medicaid at the national level. Allow states to reinstate
Title 1 of Obamacare, and / or any
other provision of the A.C.A. they wish. Allow and urge states to
self-direct their own health policy and health plans. Urge states to
explore private and non-profit solutions, as well as community-,
worker-, and consumer-oriented solutions.
5.
STATE CONTROL AND TAX CREDITS: Allow states to choose whether to
replace their Obamacare subsidies to extend Medicaid with state-level
tax credits. Urge states to consider means-tested tax credits –
deductions for health insurance premium expenses, as well as
care-related expenses - refundable up to $5,000 annually for people
who are living below the poverty level, regardless of whether they
work, earn income, or are required to pay taxes, and regardless of
their age or marital status. Federal and state poverty levels should
also be raised significantly, so that refundable tax deductions may
reach the lower middle class as well as the poor.
6.
EXPAND HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS: Make contributions to health savings
accounts completely tax-free, and remove limits on the amount of
money which can be donated to H.S.A.s. Make health savings accounts
inheritable, accessible to families, and able to be rolled-over to
family members. Make it possible for H.S.A.s to follow people
throughout their lives, even from state to state and job to job; and
allow people with H.S.A.s to enroll in lower-deductible plans.
7.
LEGALIZE INTERSTATE INSURANCE: Make health insurance portable for
people who move to new states, lose their job, travel for a living,
and are unemployed and non-employed. Legalize the interstate purchase
and sale of small-group and non-group non-employer-sponsored health
insurance, as well as small-workplace employer-sponsored insurance.
Account for the resulting need to increase policyholders' price
leverage by allowing people to join into group insurance pools,
including on the basis of profession or trade. De-link / de-couple
employment from insurance not by beginning to tax employer-sponsored
insurance, but instead through lowering taxes on
non-employer-sponsored insurance through means-tested refundable
individual tax credits for health care and insurance expenses.
Additionally, dismantle taxpayer-funded privileges and supports for
health care and insurance companies, and restore the Enumerated
Powers, in order to remove the temptation to pass mandates that let
companies get away with high prices.
8.
LIBERALIZE DRUG IMPORTATION: Remove tariffs on, and barriers to, the
importation of pharmaceutical drugs; lower importation fees will mean
lower drug prices for patients. Give the Food and Drug Administration
thirty days to approve Rx drugs that have been approved in other
industrialized countries. Reduce the duration of time for which
medication and medical device patents are enforced; this will help
swiftly end prohibition on cheap knock-offs that may be safe
alternatives to expensive name-brands. Oppose any and all measures
which would aim to establish price transparency through compulsory
means; instead, urge insurers to be more transparent about their
prices and rates, and allow states to enact price transparency laws.
9.
REPEAL MEDICAL DEVICE TAXES: Repeal taxes on income, sales, etc.;
replacing them with Land Value Taxation, in order to reduce tax
burdens on ordinary people, including health care workers and
patients. Most importantly, on hospitals that are trying to
affordably purchase medical devices. Repeal taxes on the sales of
medical devices and equipment, and repeal taxes on profits therefrom,
in order to decrease prices. When hospitals can afford up-to-date
equipment, they can diagnose diseases earlier. Oppose efforts to
enact tort reform (medical malpractice reform); do not limit juries'
abilities to award damages for non-medical traumas through
legislative means. Instead, repeal medical device taxes, in order to
help hospitals avoid medical negligence lawsuits brought on grounds
that a practitioner's lack of up-to-date equipment impaired or
hindered a proper diagnosis.
10.
REPEAL PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS: Sick people primarily need care, not
insurance coverage. Repeal the “consumer protections” provisions
of Obamacare that prohibit health insurance companies from denying
coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, and prohibits
insurers from “overcharging” policyholders. Allow states to
consider providing uninsured sick people with an 18- or 24-month
transition period in which they can obtain coverage, or to consider
prohibiting denial of coverage of afflictions which a health
insurance customer does not already have. Don't prohibit denial of
coverage; instead, increase sick people's ability to access care
affordably by enacting Points #11 and #12.
11.
INCENTIVIZE FREE CARE: Health care workers don't show up at work
because they look forward to denying people care; they want to do
their job, and they want to help people. Allow doctors and nurses to
decide whether to donate care for free, and enact non-refundable tax
credits for health care workers who decide to donate care. Government
doesn't get to tax or regulate a hospital if it doesn't generate any
revenue. Let hospitals choose whether to operate on not-for-profit
bases by refraining from charging people for, and profiting from,
care. Do not subject non-profit hospitals to the same taxes and
regulations that come with the territory of for-profit health care
models.
12:
ADDRESS HIPPOCRATIC OATHS: If health care were free, then health
insurance would be unnecessary. Make the health insurance industry
obsolete, and health insurance coverage unnecessary, by allowing
doctors and nurses to choose whether to submit to their Hippocratic
Oaths. Urge health care network to implement guidelines that require
the termination of health care workers who voluntarily vow not to
withhold care on the grounds of inability to pay, but who then break
their oaths by turning away people in need of treatment.
Written
between March 7th
and 9th,
2017
Edited
March 10th,
2017
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