On Monday, I unveiled, along with Senators Coburn and Hatch The Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment (CARE) Act, a legislative proposal that would repeal Obamacare and then replace it with common-sense, patient-centered reforms that reduce health care costs and increase access to affordable, high-quality care. Unlike Obamacare, which is centered around government mandates and regulations, the Patient CARE Act empowers the American people to make their own decisions about their health care needs, and includes adopting common-sense consumer protections and ensures that no one can be denied coverage based on their pre-existing health condition. As regular readers will know, Senator Coburn and I have been introducing market-oriented health care reform legislation since 2007.
Yesterday, the Center for Health and Economy released an economic analysis that found that The Patient CARE Act reduces healthcare costs, lowers premiums, and provides more Americans with health care coverage than Obamacare. The analysis also found that the proposal reduces the nation’s debt. The analysis from Center for Health and Economy can be found here.
More information on the Patient CARE Act can be found in the following places:
A detailed summary of the proposal can be found here.
A side-by-side comparison to Obamacare can be found here.
Frequently asked questions on the proposal can be found here.
Illustrative examples of how patients -who are harmed by Obamacare- are helped under the proposal can be found here.
Information on proposal to cap exclusion can be found here.
Information on protecting those with pre-existing conditions can be found here.
During the week I made several media appearances to discuss the Patient CARE Act, including On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Varney & Co, Bill LuMaye, and The Kudlow Report. Click below to watch or visit my Youtube page.
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In case you missed it, Fox ran an op-ed by Senators Coburn, Hatch and myself and about our healthcare proposal. You can read it here.
On Tuesday, the President gave his State of the Union address. In his address, President Obama touched on many issues, most notably on what some would characterize as income inequality. But it’s as if the President, five years into his term in office, still doesn’t understand our country and what makes it work. The greatest achievement of our modern, free society is not the promise of equal outcomes — history is littered with the wrecks of nations that tried — but rather equality of opportunity. Unfortunately, the President’s policies are destroying opportunities for families and businesses across the country in the misguided belief that tearing down some will benefit all.
The greatest source of opportunity is economic growth. The surest path to economic growth is to free our economy from the ineffective policies that the President has put into place over the five years he has been in office. President Obama has added more debt than all previous presidents combined. Unemployment, and underemployment, remain high. If you count Americans who have stopped looking for work and dropped out of the workforce entirely, it’s near record highs. And the income inequality that the President speaks about is higher under his administration than at any point since before the Great Depression. By any measure, our country is less free, more in debt, less respected abroad, and facing a future where prosperity and opportunity are reserved for the few.
It is my wish that the President would stop looking for someone to blame, and instead spend time thinking about how we can reach bipartisan solutions to the issues he laid out this evening. I look forward to the President reaching out for suggestions as how to change our nation’s current unsustainable path.
Sincerely,
Richard Burr