***NEWS RELEASE***
As Yet Another Non-Repeal Bill Fails, Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom Says: Put a Real Repeal Bill Up for a Vote
Only a Pure Repeal Bill will Stop the Fruitless Quibbling Over Details that Killed BCRA, ‘Skinny Repeal’ and Graham-Cassidy
ST. PAUL, Minn.—The Graham-Cassidy bill is the latest casualty in “repeal and replace” efforts, and the “replace” portion is most of the problem, says Twila Brase, president and co-founder of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF, www.cchfreedom.org).
Brase says that no replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act will satisfy enough lawmakers. Instead, she says, Congress should put a real and full repeal bill up for a vote and let the chips fall where they may.
“It’s a myth that a vote to repeal-and-replace the ACA had to happen by this past weekend, September 30,” Brase said. “While any future vote will need 60 votes rather than just 51, we urge Congress to do the right thing. Put up for a vote a simple one- to two-page bill that will completely wipe the Affordable Care Act from the books. Ignore how members say they’re going to vote and see what actually happens when they have to say yes or no to real repeal.”
Brase added that tax reform plans should take tax equity for health insurance into account.
“Any tax reform must include tax equity for the purchase of health insurance,” Brase said. “This would be a step back to freedom. Americans who purchase their own insurance or have employer-sponsored coverage should all receive the same tax deduction—or none at all. Tax equity could lead to individual ownership for a lifetime, as well as portable policies that allow you to receive your entire compensation in cash. This would help solve part of what’s wrong in health care and move toward a solution with individual choices as well as a solution for uninsurable, preexisting conditions. People could buy their own policies, wouldn’t have to rely on their employers, wouldn’t have to remain trapped in a job just because of insurance, and wouldn’t lose coverage just because they lose or change jobs.”
Additionally, nearly any ACA “replacement” bill, Brase added, will keep patients and doctors under federal control.
“We should not substitute one version of federal control for another version of federal control,” she said. “A real and full repeal is what Americans need and voted for. Thus far, the roster of replacement bills would not have returned control to the states. They would have created more federally funded programs, established new wage redistribution channels and pooled healthy people in the individual market with individuals who have uninsurable conditions, and ultimately, lined the pockets of the already wealthy health plans. Congress and the U.S. Senate should go on the record with a vote on a full repeal of all 2,700 pages of this unconstitutional law. Otherwise, Republican leadership can never claim they actually wanted to repeal Obamacare.”
For more information about CCHF, visit www.cchfreedom.org, its Facebook page or its Twitter feed @CCHFreedom. Also view the media page for CCHF here. For more about CCHF’s initiative The Wedge of Health Freedom, visit www.JointheWedge.com, The Wedge Facebook page or follow The Wedge on Twitter @wedgeoffreedom.
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