President Trump has promised he’ll unveil a “phenomenal” healthcare plan in the coming weeks, and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said he stands ready to be part of the conversation.
“We need to change the narrative,” Roy, a freshman representative, told the Washington Examiner of the need for more Republicans to get on the same page about the party’s healthcare platform. “We need to go on offense. I do think there is an interest in doing that.”
As part of his commitment to this goal, Roy has introduced legislation that would expand health savings accounts, tax-free funds people can use to pay for healthcare. Under his proposal, the accounts would be renamed to “Health Freedom Accounts,” with employers and charitable organizations allowed to contribute.
The plan would let people set aside up to $12,000 a year for an individual, up from $3,500, and have them use the funds to pay directly for drugs, catastrophic coverage, checkups, or other healthcare services. The arrangement, Roy says, gives patients more control.
“I obviously hope it’ll get the attention of my colleagues and the president, but I’m in this for the long game,” Roy said. “I want to work to shape the conversation. I want people to know it’s OK to be unafraid of your beliefs”
His six-page Healthcare Freedom Act won’t move ahead under the Democrat-controlled House. But Roy has his sights set on 2020, an election in which Trump is looking to brand Republicans “as the party of healthcare.”
The president hasn’t shared any details about his healthcare plan, and it’s not clear which ideas he’ll throw his support behind. Roy has spoken with White House staffers, and he hopes his plan will get Trump’s attention.
Like Trump, Roy believes that Republicans need to go on the offense on healthcare, rather than simply attacking Obamacare and the Medicare for All Act, the bill from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would roll everyone living in the United States into a government plan and do away with private insurance. Republicans have been searching a conservative foil on healthcare that would do the opposite, chipping away at government involvement.
“The problem Republicans have had for a long time is that we have accepted the premise that coverage is the metric by which we should gauge success in healthcare,” Roy said. “We want to gauge success in healthcare by people having access to high-quality care, choice, and making sure everyone is able to do that.”
Trump insists Republicans should lead on healthcare even as other members of his party would prefer not to revisit the issue. Republicans tried and failed multiple attempts at repealing Obamacare, largely because they couldn’t agree on a replacement.
But without a plan, Republicans risk opening themselves up to further attacks. The Trump administration supports a lawsuit waged by GOP state officials that calls for Obamacare to be declared unconstitutional, an outcome that could wipe out coverage for millions of people.
Roy believes the arrangement he came up with will help lower medical costs by unleashing a more free-market approach, rather than the current system where people pay into a plan that decides which doctors and hospitals they cover, and which negotiate rates on behalf of patients. So far, the only other co-sponsor is Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.
Roy’s bill isn’t the first swing Republicans have taken at expanding health savings accounts. The House passed two bills in 2018 to expand access to the accounts, but they were not taken up by the Senate. Critics say that such plans are aimed at the wealthy, who can afford to put aside money in the first place.
The provision is just one piece of what Roy hopes will become part of a larger restructuring of the healthcare system that Republicans can get behind. He wants to see other measures passed that would reduce drug costs and set up a safety net for people with dire illnesses who are too poor to pay for coverage on their own.
He is opposed to Obamacare’s approach, which extends Medicaid to low-income people. Instead, he said, states should be provided a block grant to set up their own safety nets.
“We ought to simplify and reset the way we go about healthcare … We have way overcomplicated this,” Roy said.
