***NEWS RELEASE***
For Immediate Release November 14, 2016
CONTACT:
Beth Harrison, Hamilton Strategies, 610.584.1096, ext. 104, Media@HamiltonStrategies.com, or Deborah Hamilton, 215.815.7716, 610.584.1096, ext. 102
The Only Obamacare ‘Replacement’ Is Repeal
Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom: Don’t Waste Time on a Replacement Plan That Could Take Months or Years; Repeal Now
ST. PAUL, Minn.—President-elect Donald Trump has already issued a “Contract with the American Voter” and has vowed to “repeal and replace” Obamacare.
And those who advocate for health freedom and patient privacy are holding him to it.
Among them is Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF, www.cchfreedom.org), which has long called for full repeal of the Affordable Care Act rather than replacing it with another plan that is bogged down with federal controls and does not return health freedom to patients and doctors.
“Now that he has been elected, President-elect Trump should work to repeal Obamacare without delay,” said Twila Brase, president and co-founder of CCHF. “Waiting for agreement on replacement would lead to disaster. Constitutionally, health care should be returned to the states; we don’t need another federally controlled plan. And this should be done quickly as a main priority in Mr. Trump’s first 100 days in office.
“Repeal is a very realistic possibility with a GOP-controlled House and Senate,” she continued, “but Obamacare is also a huge liability for Democrats. We had life before Obamacare; we can have life after Obamacare. Today, many people are looking at skyrocketing premiums they just can’t afford and are considering alternatives such as paying the penalty tax and not being covered at all. Obamacare has created a crisis, not a solution.”
The problem with health care, CCHF maintains, is that the government should not have been involved in the first place. To return affordability and freedom to patients and doctors, health care must head in a completely opposite direction—back to direct payments and indemnity insurance—essentially, back to the future, one without all the costly interference, intrusions, regulations and profiteering interlopers.
“This election presents a very real opportunity to restore health freedom to Americans,” Brase said. “We hope Mr. Trump is truly committed to repealing Obamacare and it wasn’t an empty campaign promise. But to delay repeal because lawmakers can’t agree on a replacement squanders the precious time we have to be freed from this damaging health care law. Ultimately, there may never be a repeal if we wait for a replacement. And unless the replacement returns health care to the states, we’d be trading in one version of federal control for another. The only ‘fix’ is full repeal and returning health care to the states, which is required under the 10th Amendment.”
Going forward, Brase added, there are at least 10 things President-elect Trump should do until a repeal bill is signed, and especially if Congress resists repeal. Namely, the government should follow its own law until the time of repeal.
- Shut down any “risk corridor” bailouts for insurance companies.
- Return ACA “reinsurance” dollars to the U.S. Treasury, as the law requires.
- Require all members of Congress and their staff to enroll in Obamacare, as the law requires.
- Shut down any administrative plans to bail out insurers through lawsuit settlements.
- Put all 20,000-plus pages of Obamacare regulations on hold and begin to rescind them.
- Issue an executive order allowing all states to open or reopen their shuttered high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions.
- Issue a rule or executive order that would reopen the market to indemnity policies, the affordable catastrophic coverage that Obamacare outlawed for people age 30 and over.
- Require Health and Human Services to automatically accept every hardship waiver request, allowing Americans to escape the unaffordable individual mandate.
- Shut down HealthCare.Gov for its longstanding privacy and security issues.
- Dismantle the federal Health Insurance Exchange Program database, which gathers information on every Obamacare enrollee and stores it permanently for research and other uses.
“Finally,” Brase concluded, “as his first executive order after inauguration, President-elect Trump should rescind the federal regulation that forces Medicare-eligible Americans to enroll in Medicare Part A (hospitalization) or lose their Social Security payments. There’s no reason for private insurance to end at age 65. This is the first freedom he can return to all Americans—the freedom and the right to stay out of Medicare.”
CCHF recently launched The Wedge of Health Freedom (www.JointheWedge.com), where doctors have said ‘no’ to costly and restrictive insurance contracts and government regulations. These Wedge practices, which are located in about 40 states, can be found online in a “map of freedom,” which displays the locations of doctors and other health care professionals around the country, where patients can find care that is affordable, confidential and patient-friendly.
CCHF is a national patient-centered health freedom organization existing to protect health care choices, individualized patient care, and medical and genetic privacy rights. For more information about CCHF, visit its web site at www.cchfreedom.org, its Facebook page or its Twitter feed @CCHFreedom. For more about The Wedge of Health Freedom, visit www.JointheWedge.com, The Wedge Facebook page or follow The Wedge on Twitter @wedgeoffreedom.
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Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, a patient-centered national health freedom organization based in St. Paul, Minn., exists to protect health care choices, individualized patient care, and medical and genetic privacy rights. CCHF sponsors the daily, 60-second radio feature, “Health Freedom Minute,” which airs on nearly 800 stations nationwide, including nearly 200 American Family Radio and 100 on the Bott radio network. Listeners can learn more about the agenda behind health care initiatives and steps they can take to protect their health care choices, rights and privacy. For information on how to add “Health Freedom Minute” to a station lineup, contact Michael Hamilton at mhamilton@hamiltonstrategies.com, (610) 584-1096 or (215) 519-4838.
CCHF president and co-founder Twila Brase, R.N., has been called one of the “100 Most Powerful People in Health Care” and one of “Minnesota’s 100 Most Influential Health Care Leaders.” A public health nurse, Brase has been interviewed by CNN, Fox News, Minnesota Public Radio, Politico, NBC Nightly News, NBC’s Today Show, NPR, New York Public Radio, the Associated Press, Modern Healthcare, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Washington Times, among others. She is at the forefront of informing the public of crucial health issues, such as the importance of patient privacy and informed consent, the dangers of “evidence-based medicine,” “population health” and “pay for performance” and the implications of state and federal health care reform on patient choice and patient access to care.
For more information or to interview Twila Brase of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, contact Beth Harrison at 610-584-1096 x104, Media@HamiltonStrategies.com or Deborah Hamilton at 215-815-7716 or 610-584-1096 x102.
