***NEWS RELEASE***
For Immediate Release
March 27, 2017
CONTACT:
Beth Harrison, Hamilton Strategies, 610.584.1096, ext. 104, Media@HamiltonStrategies.com, or Deborah Hamilton, 215.815.7716, 610.584.1096, ext. 102
What Went Wrong?
With American Health Care Act Dead on Arrival, Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom’s Twila Brase Tells The Daily Caller President Trump’s Focus Must Be Freedom in Health Care
ST. PAUL, Minn.—Late Friday afternoon, Congress pulled the American Health Care Act (AHCA), just minutes before a scheduled vote. And over the weekend, many were asking, “What went wrong?”
Twila Brase, president and co-founder of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF, www.cchfreedom.org), a national health freedom and patient advocacy organization that has long called for the full repeal of Obamacare, addressed this very question in a videotaped interview with The Daily Caller, where she explained why the vote was looking unlikely and that health care repeal is as necessary as ever.
“After seven years of Obamacare,” Brase said, “big hospitals have gobbled up little hospitals and big insurers have gobbled up smaller insurers, causing higher prices, higher premiums and higher deductibles. The power of health plans, exerted in politics at the national and state level, has also vastly expanded, and now, many Americans have health care premiums that are higher than their mortgage payments. And to add insult to injury, they’ve lost their doctors and lost their plans.”
Brase reminded that Republicans won a huge number of votes based on the promise that they would repeal Obamacare, but the bill pulled from the House on Friday didn’t deliver the promised repeal. In fact, the bill didn’t even replace Obamacare.
“Instead, the American Health Care Act continued government-run health care with its own requirements and mandates,” Brase said. “Nothing in the law would have guaranteed lower prices or increased access to health care. As for what went wrong, conservatives were never really welcomed to the table and included in important policy discussions. Now, President Trump must make a decisive decision that the country will march back to freedom in health care rather than advancing toward socialized medicine under corporate cover.”
Last week in advance of the scheduled AHCA vote, Brase traveled to Washington, D.C., where she met with lawmakers about the GOP plan as well as other important health care issues. CCHF prepared a document for members of Congress that outlined what the health freedom organization wants to see as health care reform moves forward. See the document here.
In a featured video with The Daily Caller, Brase also discusses CCHF’s newest initiative, The Wedge of Health Freedom (www.JointheWedge.com) to transform the entire health care system back to freedom and restore simplicity, affordability and confidentiality. Nearly 200 Wedge practices, where patients can find affordable, patient-centered care, are located in 44 states and listed online.
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 www.cchfreedom.org, its Facebook page or its Twitter feed @CCHFreedom. Also view the media page for CCHF here. 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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To interview CCHF’s Twila Brase, contact Beth Harrison at 610-584-1096 x104, Media@HamiltonStrategies.com or Deborah Hamilton at 215-815-7716 or 610-584-1096 x102.