ObamaCare is proving to be an unmitigated disaster for the American people, raising insurance premiums and costing millions the coverage Obama promised they could keep. The law unfairly redistributes wealth from the young to the old, selling out America’s future for the sake of another costly entitlement. We need real health care reform, not a government takeover. We need market-based solutions that foster competition and empower individuals to keep health care where it belongs—between patients and their doctors.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In response to the House passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act, H.R. 1425, on a largely party-line vote, Jason Pye, FreedomWorks Vice President of Legislative Affairs, commented:
On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote NO on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act, H.R. 1425. This bill doubles down on ObamaCare by attempting to force more people into both the exchanges and Medicaid while also adding on socialist-style price controls on prescription drugs. Although Democrats have made clear that Medicare for All remains their policy end-goal, this latest proposal seems to show that they are content in the meantime to continue herding patients into the existing silos that ObamaCare narrowed health care payments into.
Democrats are expected to vote early next week on a bill, H.R. 1425, entitled the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act.” The bill is exactly what it explicitly claims to be - a doubling down on the original structure of ObamaCare, with some extra patches added in. This is likely a foreshadowing of the push we’ll see to take the next step in expanding government control of health care should Democrats succeed in taking the White House in 2020.
On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your senators and ask them to cosponsor the Right to Test Act, S. 3769, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). This bill would let states approve coronavirus testing to be used in their state without the interference of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA).
On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and senators ask them to cosponsor the American Healthshare Plans Act, H.R. 6712 and S. 3610, introduced in the House by Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) and in the Senate by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). This bill would allow non-employer membership organizations to offer health insurance to individuals, including across state lines, opening up a much-needed alternate path to coverage.
On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to cosponsor the Increasing Hospital Capacity to Fight the Coronavirus Act, H.R. 6336, introduced by Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.). This bill would temporarily allow states to suspend their certificate-of-need (CON) laws for the duration of the coronavirus emergency without fear of losing federal funding under Medicare or Medicaid.
It doesn’t take much searching to come up with dozens of examples of private companies stepping up to help provide our beleaguered medical professionals with desperately needed protective equipment and tools to save lives. Textile companies churning out face masks and protective clothing for doctors. Manufacturers switching their assembly lines to produce ventilators. Distilleries making hand sanitizer. Lots of companies are stepping up in other ways too, figuring out ways to serve their communities and protect their workforces as best they can, or diverting production to replenish items that panicked buyers have stripped store shelves of.
Generally, in looking for examples of sound free-market policies, one’s first instinct would probably not be Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Yes, the same governor who just last week imposed perhaps the most draconian state-wide quarantine order yet, literally telling Michiganders that they are not even allowed to walk across the street to visit their neighbors except for specifically outlined reasons.
In just the past week, more than six million American workers applied for unemployment benefits as the United States entered another month of social distancing and quarantine in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Numbers released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the economy hemorrhaged more than 700,000 jobs in the month of March. The St. Louis Fed recently predicted that unemployment might hit 32 percent, greater than at the height of the Great Depression. These figures are dire.
