“For years, the American people have been calling on Washington to build a bridge away from Obamacare. For years, Democrats prevented the Senate from passing legislation to do so. But in just a moment, that will change,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declared in December 2015 before the upper chamber voted to pass a reconciliation bill that repealed much of Obamacare.
Today, with 52 seats and the majority, Republicans are struggling to repeal Obamacare. In fact, the Better Care Reconciliation Act keeps much of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic legislative achievement in place. While Democrats certainly aren’t on board with the bill, the real hurdles for passage are the moderates in the Senate Republican Conference, all of whom, with the exception of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted for the 2015 repeal bill less than two years ago.
As rolled out in the Senate, the Better Care Reconciliation Act fails to keep nearly a decade’s worth of promises to repeal Obamacare. Still, Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, are seeking to include language — the “Consumer Freedom Option” — that would allow health insurance companies to offer plans that aren’t compliant with Obamacare’s onerous regulations.
Obamacare’s regulations, according to the Heritage Foundation, are responsible for most of the eye-popping premium increases Americans have seen over the past few years. Those premium increases, unfortunately, are almost an afterthought in the debate over the Better Care Reconciliation Act, as some Senate Republicans actively seek to protect parts of Obamacare.
The Consumer Freedom Option functions as an opt-out of Obamacare for those consumers who don’t want or need expensive health plans offered on the exchanges.
One of the many problems with Obamacare is that Congress and unelected bureaucrats dictated what the acceptable level of health insurance coverage was, including how insurers priced coverage and what benefits had to be offered. The Consumer Freedom Option restores Americans’ choice.
“[W]hat this will allow is okay fine you want to keep your mandates? Knock yourself out with your mandates, but in addition to mandates let’s let Texans buy the plans they want, let’s let Texans buy the benefits they want and let’s let them get lower prices so that more families who are struggling can actually afford health insurance,” Sen. Cruz recently explained.
It’s bad enough that many Senate Republicans have gone back on their pledges and votes to repeal Obamacare, but those who are losing their minds about the Consumer Freedom Option are effectively dictating what plans consumers in Texas can buy while, at the same time, complaining about changes to Medicaid funding for their home states — changes, by the way, that still allow for growth in Medicaid spending.
In addition to healthcare freedom, the Consumer Freedom Option would also stabilize the nongroup market, which, in case Senate Republicans who are actively defending Obamacare have forgotten, isn’t doing so well, as more than 1,000 counties and five states are left with one insurer participating in the Obamacare exchanges.
The Consumer Freedom Option would reverse this trend.
As the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon recently explained:
Absent ObamaCare’s health-insurance regulations, premiums would fall for the vast majority of Exchange enrollees by an estimated 45-68 percent. It would allow insurers to reintroduce innovative products, which ObamaCare effectively outlawed, that would reduce premiums a further 80 percent(!). Consumers could purchase long-term, guaranteed-renewable coverage that protects them from premium spikes when they fall ill, provides coverage more comprehensive than ObamaCare, and is more secure than employer coverage. Risk-based premiums stabilize insurance markets and enable these quality improvements. They are consumer protections.
In his December 2015 speech on the Obamacare repeal bill, McConnell talked of a new day in the upper chamber. “A new Senate that’s back on the side of the American people will vote to move beyond all the broken promises, all the higher costs, and all the failures. We will vote to build a bridge away from Obamacare and toward better care,” he said. “We will vote for a new beginning.”
The Better Care Reconciliation Act, as currently written, does not fulfill these promises, but the inclusion of the Consumer Freedom Option would be a step in the right direction, a step toward repealing Obamacare and giving consumers a real choice in the health coverage they want for themselves and their families.
Jason Pye (@pye) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the director of public policy and legislative affairs for FreedomWorks.
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