Obamacare is now six years old. Its accomplishments include disrupting the health insurance market to the point where some of the most established carriers are considering exiting the Exchanges, throwing millions of Americans off their health plans, enticing states to expand a government-run health insurance program that harms the poor, and coercing people into purchasing expensive policies that come with annual double digit premium percentage increases.
Despite the laundry list of party fouls, the White House will surely be raising their glasses. The Obama Administration will give a toast to the federal health law greatly reducing the number of uninsured – a paltry 2.7 percent.
And therein lies the problem. The administration and its supporters focus so much on its #GetCovered campaign, and not enough on how to make health care more accessible and affordable.
It’s really up to Congress to tackle the root causes of our distorted health care market – most of which predate Obamacare’s existence. John Goodman, one of the foremost experts in all things health policy, explains:
“Even if we abolished ObamaCare, we would not have a free market for health care. We would have a health care system shaped and molded by government policy and the worst of those policies are ones that encourage us all to have group insurance, rather than individual insurance. Those policies are tax law policies…If you’re not willing to take on the tax system and change those perverse incentives, I don’t think you’re really serious about health reform.”
Until Congress decides to get serious, there are ways in which states can act to mitigate the many flaws in our nation’s health care system. As North Carolina lawmakers gear up for short session in April, here are three key policy changes that ought to be considered as a means to improve access to care at a lower cost – with less government intervention.
