Twenty-Three-Point Plan to Repeal and Replace Obamacare

     The following is the set of 23 legislative policies which I would recommend concerning health care and health insurance. Points 3 through 23 consist of a 21-point plan to replace Obamacare.

     This plan is a development of the health platform on which I ran during my 2016 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 10th District. The plan was influenced by suggestions made by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky (#s 4, 5, 17, 18, and 23), Senator Ted Cruz of Texas (#s 18, 19, and 21), and former Bill Clinton adviser Dick Morris (#15).

     1. Fully repeal Title I (the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act / A.C.A.).

     2. Repeal and replace the A.C.A. on the same day (replacing it with the following 21 points of this legislation).

     3. Replace the A.C.A. and the mandate with a federal public option which is truly voluntary (or, at the very least, voluntary in those states which decline to enact their own state-level purchase mandates): a

llow states to completely or partially reinstate Title I, thereby joining into a public option which allows entire states to agree to join the new federal plan.

     4. Allow non-governmental health pools in mandate-free states to choose the federal public option.

     5. Give people with pre-existing conditions currently on Medicare a 2-year transition period in which to transition to a tax-free, non-employer-provided, not-for-profit health insurance policy.

     6. Let states enact their own tax credits, whether refundable or non-refundable.

     7. In the federal public option, allow the deduction of care and insurance expenses from taxes in a refundable manner, up to $5,000, annually, for all people below the poverty level (while raising that level) in states agreeing to re-enact Title I (and thus participate in a public option on a state-wide basis).

     8. Allow states to self-direct Medicaid and Medicare if they pay more to the federal government than they take in, while prohibiting self-direction but making block-granting an option for states paying less to the federal government than they take in.

     9. Allow states to decide whether to repeal the requirement that insurers cover pre-existing conditions (except subsidized insurers).

     10. Allow states to decide whether to require insurers to cover adult children up to the age of 26 (except subsidized insurers).

     11. Legalize and liberalize the importation of foreign drugs, by giving the F.D.A. 30 days to approve legal foreign prescription drugs approved in other modern industrialized countries.

     12. Reduce the duration of patent terms on medications and medical devices.

     13. Lower and end taxes on sales of medical devices, and lower and end taxes on the profits from medical device sales, but only on non-subsidized sellers.

     14. Lower and repeal all additional national tariffs and protective barriers, and all state sales taxes and subsidies, which support the monopolization of medical information and technology.

     15. Allow non-profit and charitable medical providers to operate tax-free (with the exception of a community-levied tax on the unimproved value of any lands which they may own).

     16. (A) Make health savings accounts (H.S.A.s) tax-free, and remove contribution limits; (B) Allow H.S.A.s to roll over to family, spousal catch-up contributions, and inheritance; (C) Allow health savings account holders to choose low-deductible plans, and (D) Reimburse past qualified medical expenses if a person establishes a health savings account within 8 months of the passage of this legislation.

     17. Repeal any federal tax credits which unduly discriminate against young people.

     18. Urge 45 states to pass bills legalizing the sale and purchase of small-group and personal health insurance policies across state lines, as long as policies comply with state regulations.

     19. Amend H.I.P.A.A., so as to repeal the tax credit for employer-provided health insurance.

     20. Attempt to achieve increased demand for legal, tax-free, non-employer-provided health insurance policy alternatives; while also advocating for the abolition of insurance by subsidized employers, and the end of for-profit health insurance.

     21. Diminish demand for employer provided health insurance plans by advocating for more non-employer-provided choices which follow people from state to state and job to job.

     22. Allow professional associations, business alliances, unions, and voluntary associations join together to do group insurance pooling on the basis of their commonly shared safety and health risks owing to their belonging to such associations.

     23. Remove any obstacles (in the Taft-Hartley Act, or in federal health insurance policy) which may hinder non-governmental unions, credit unions, and health cooperatives to cooperate in syndicates, so as to maximally leverage their health insurance purchasing power (in order to 

lower rates and improve affordability).

Read an article explaining some portions of this proposal at:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2018/08/crafting-health-insurance-law.html

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Written on August 23rd, 2018