Obamacare
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Obamacare
Hindsight is said to be 20/20, but you and I didn’t need to see the implementation of Obamacare to know it would have a disastrous impact on American families and come between many individuals and their doctors.
Free-market analysts, like Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner and those on NPRI’s staff, accurately forecasted the consequences of Obamacare years ago.
I’ll bet there were even times during the last seven months when you thought to yourself, “That’s what I said was going to happen … four years ago.”
Like when the media finally realized that Obamacare kicked millions of Americans off their health care plans — and will force tens of millions more off when Obama stops arbitrarily delaying parts of his signature legislation. Many of those same Americans lost long-time family physicians, and now face exponentially higher premiums and deductibles for what is often less coverage than they had to begin with.
The law is far less popular than supporters have tried to claim, and sign-ups among young, healthy adults who will pick up the tab of the older and sick are lagging.
As NPRI predicted, Obamacare has caused Medicaid enrollment — and the cost of providing it — to soar, further burdening cash-strapped taxpayers.
The CBO has now projected that Obamacare will increase the federal deficit by $226 billion by 2019, and we now know that Obamacare will cost the nation 2.5 million full-time jobs over the next decade by removing health insurance as a major incentive to stay employed.
As destructive as Obamacare has been, it has shown, once again, why we can and should trust free-market principles.
It’s not enough just to be right about what’s wrong, which is why free-market supporters are appropriately seizing the opportunity to turn from a policy that has profoundly hurt millions of Americans and offer real solutions for health care reform.
Michael Tanner has co-edited a book on free-market solutions to health care problems, and recently, he published an analysis titled Obamacare: What We Know Now.
When it comes to people who understand the current state of health care and the solutions the free market has to offer, Michael Tanner is among the best. And I’m excited to tell you he will be the keynote speaker at NPRI’s Spring Celebration on June 18 in Reno, so you can have the chance to hear his insights first-hand.
The only way to improve the access Americans have to quality, affordable health care is to limit government involvement and give individuals the freedom to choose the doctors and health care plans they like best. As we’ve seen with public education, a government-controlled monopoly is a sure way to run up costs and achieve substandard outcomes.
I hope you’ll join us in June to learn more about the free-market solutions to our nation’s health care problems. If you’d like more information on the event or if you’re ready to reserve your seat, you can do so here.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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