Rounds Cosponsors Obamacare Replacement Plan
WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) joined his colleagues in introducing the Patient Freedom Act, a conservative response to protect millions of Americans who are at risk of losing their health care coverage following the Supreme Court’s ruling in King v. Burwell. The Patient Freedom Act, introduced by Sen. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), lowers costs, eliminates mandates, gives states the power and puts patients in control of their health care.
“The Administration has no plan to protect the American people if the Supreme Court rules against Obamacare’s healthcare subsidies, a decision that could come any day now,” said Rounds. “For 19,000 South Dakotans, that means lost federal healthcare subsidies and up to a 178 percent increase in their health care premiums. Our legislation, carefully crafted by Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, is a long-term solution that is patient-centered and puts states back in the driver’s seat. It provides states with the flexibility, funding and control to determine the best health care plan for their needs and rids them of Obamacare’s federal mandates.”
Original cosponsors include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), Sens. David Vitter (R-LA), Dan Coats (R-IN), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Jim Inhofe (R-OK). A companion bill will be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Dr. Ralph Abraham (R-LA).
Overview
The Patient Freedom Act is a market-based solution that gives patients the power by lowering costs, eliminating mandates, returning power to states over insurance, and giving patients knowledge.
·Doing nothing is not an option
o King v. Burwell will be decided this month and Republicans need a plan
o Americans expect Congress to have an Obamacare alternative for the 5-10 million people impacted
· Under the Patient Freedom Act, states have three options:
o Continue Obamacare and establish a state exchange
o Do nothing while 5-10 million people lose their health care
o Enact the Patient Freedom Act – choosing conservative, free market health care solutions
· This plan lowers costs by repealing unpopular Obamacare federal mandates, including:
o Individual mandate
o Employer mandate
o Federal essential health benefits mandate
· The Patient Freedom Act ensures health care dollars go directly to the patient:
o States could choose to receive this funding through either a per capita patient grant or a federal tax credit, depending on the state’s preference
o However, unlike under Obamacare, this funding goes DIRECTLY to patients
· Patients are empowered:
o Patients receive their money through a Health Savings Account (HSA), empowering patients to make the best decision for them and their families
o HSAs are reformed to allow patients to use their health care dollars for more options
· Patients have the power of portability, protection and price transparency:
o Patients can move between health insurance plans without penalty each year
o Those with pre-existing conditions are protected
o Providers must publish a cash price for services reimbursed from HSAs, empowering patients to make informed decisions
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So we will then pay for them at the emergency room like you got a plan.And we send you to the senate.But at least you don’t look for every photo op like Tehran John.
Sen. Rounds,
Your Patient Freedom Act returns to the days when insurance companies could refuse to renew policies on a yearly basis if the policy holder got cancer, MS, diabetes or any long term illness. This was the cause of vast medical bankruptcy hardships. Your Act also returns to when insurance companies (Isn’t that what you do? Sell insurance?) could make windfall profits without explanation. The free marketplace was fouled by Healthcare Insurance Corporations gouging the public with 40% -60% premium increases; the norm for decade. No thanks, we’ll keep our level playing field and we’ll keep our OBAMACARE.
You mean you can keep your Obamacare like we Were able to keep OUR insurance plans?
“If you like your insurance plan, you can keep your insurance plan, Period” ~ OBAMA
I had a work-sponsored health care plan before ACA. And I still have it after ACA was implemented. So, yes.
Well, then you are lucky. My son had a work sponsored insurance plan before Obamacare, and it completely disappeared with the advent of Obamacare. So much for “you can keep your insurance if you like it, period.”
“The Administration has no plan to protect the American people if the Supreme Court rules against Obamacare’s healthcare subsidies, “/–Hey that is the job of you people that have stepped in ‘IT’ big time.
” “For 19,000 South Dakotans, that means lost federal healthcare subsidies and up to a 178 percent increase in their health care premiums.”–WHAT? That’s what would happen if “you people’ succeed in gutting the ACA?
“Continue Obamacare and establish a state exchange”–Hasaaa, just exactly what the wing-nuts didn’t want.
These people are now scared crapless that the SCOTUS will rule for what they’ve claimed they wanted …
Do “you people” know now why these folks lied to you by promising to repeal Onama firs thing?….This is hilarious.
this is tiresome.
obviously you missed the part where the people suing to stop subsidies in the fed-exchange states (like sd) want the original purpose of the law to go forward. that purpose included in a-c-a WAS TO MAKE RATES SKYROCKET for those who didn’t follow laws setting up the state exchanges and adopting unfunded extra federal mandates. get it? the bringers of the lawsuit want skyrocketing rates in the federal-exchange states, because that’s what a-c-a was supposed to do to people in states that didn’t self-screw by gladly adopting a bunch of unfunded mandates and onerous a-c-a rules. was that hard to understand? that the congress members who widened the subsidies for the fed-exchange states were protecting their voters from punitive rate increases with no market basis behind them? get it yet? do i need to type in a bigger font?
instead you continue to help lie about what a boon and blessing a-c-a is for everyone, ignoring what most people who could read and do math knew from day – 1 —– that this 13 hundred page law would gut the previous system, put onerous centralized federal control over everything, and take full charge of the nation’s health-care cash flow for purely politlcal/power reasons for the forseable future.
well-meaning politicians haven’t found the clear path to chopping big-brother out of the new laws, and keeping what actually does help people intact and that’s what they’re looking for. but keep lying your lies and shouting about what liars the republicans are. that seems to be the only game you all have left.
having said all that, rounds bill is a good one. pass it.
I’ve always tried to view most acts of bureaucratic bungling and incompetence by the credo “never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity”.
The Obama administration has really made me rethink things.
playing stupid is a tactic,and presuming they’re stupid helps them. go ahead and presume it’s a long game where disempowered state entities bear all the financial burden, and the national elite skim the cream from the money stream flowing away from providing health care. think about it, we’re asking for careful bureaucratic management of our health care dollars from the people who promised to fix the lake pontchartrain levies, and social security, but who always overspend the revenues on everything but.
states have gummed up the works by not taking on the mandates and regulation of state exchange status, and sidestepping the punitive alternative. a-c-a strategists know when all states are forced into the state-run exchange model they’re past the tipping point on making this thing virtually permanent and immune to repeal/change talk; the lawsuit is to speed the tipping point along because if they don’t reach it they lose.
Yeah William if your father was Muslim, your financier George Soros and your Pastor Jeremiah Wright, can Constitutionally driven Capitalism be anything but your enemy?
Tiresome? Oh, you should take a nap.
So much for the liberal claim we can’t get rid of Obamacare because the GOP doesn’t have an alternative.
BTW, this isn’t that far from what has been advocated for almost a decade within GOP circles. And, the only thing it is missing is my re-insurance component with regard to portability (which I think is more efficient but I admit I don’t have enough information to know if my idea has unintended consequences).
First, just to be clear. I’m glad that our Governor and state did not implement the state exchange.
That said, there are merit to state exchanges. Right now I can only buy health insurance approved and regulated by the State of South Dakota. I can’t buy a plan approved and regulated in say Florida. State exchanges can become the vehicle where this becomes possible. More importantly, it becomes the means for cost reduction with regard to health insurance in so many ways beyond just the effect of competition and diversity of options.
P.S. State Echanges were originally conceived by the GOP and is the only component of Obamacare which had “GOP roots.”