FreedomWorks Foundation Offers Trump Administration Suggestions to Reduce ObamaCare Regulatory Burden

On July 12, FreedomWorks Foundation’s Regulatory Action Center (RAC) responded to a request for comment from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on how to reduce the regulatory burden of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as ObamaCare.

FreedomWorks Foundation ultimately believes ObamaCare must be repealed and replaced with policies that create more direct markets between patients and their healthcare providers. However, the RAC was able to identify three specific regulations and potential reforms that will lower the cost of both health insurance and healthcare itself. Per the formal comment:

"The ACA is a bill designed to increase the usage of third-party payments in the healthcare
sector, which has the effect of increasing healthcare costs, not lessening them, because
consumers do not see the true costs of their care. ACA not only expanded Medicaid and
mandated insurance coverage for those not qualifying for Medicaid, subsequent regulations have
raised the minimum standard of what qualifies as health insurance and thereby further reduced
the already-limited presence of direct markets between patients and providers in certain areas of
care. For these very basic reasons, ACA will do nothing to ultimately solve America’s healthcare
problem. Emulating the problem it further institutionalized, ACA is nothing more than an
extremely expensive bandage."

The comment goes on to highlight Essential Health Benefit standards, Actuarial Value standards, and Medical Loss Ratio rules as the three most damaging regulations HHS should seek to scrap or weaken to the greatest extent possible under law. HHS should implement these changes in the interim, until a more permanent legislative solution is passed. Read FreedomWorks Foundation’s suggestions on reducing the regulatory burden of ObamaCare here or in the attached document below.

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