State AG’s lawsuit won’t fix Obamacare – we need a health care solution that works for everyone
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson is wasting his time and, more importantly, state taxpayers’ money by joining 15 other Democratic attorneys general in a desperate effort to preserve Obamacare.
A quick review of history explains why.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, became law in 2010. One of the fundamental provisions of the law was an individual mandate that required every adult in the United States to own an approved health insurance policy or pay a penalty to the government.
The policy that a person must purchase a commercial product by law had never been done in this country. Many people felt this part of the ACA was unconstitutional.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses sued the federal government on grounds that the mandate was unconstitutional.
The case was ultimately heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012. With a narrow vote of 5 to 4, Chief Justice Roberts declared the mandate was constitutional because the penalty for not owning health insurance was actually a “tax” and Congress has the power to tax Americans.
In December 2017, Congress passed a major tax reform bill that included the repeal of the Obamacare tax for not owning approved health insurance.
Since the tax was the basis for the Court declaring the entire law constitutional, 20 Republican attorneys general have now filed a suit again challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare.
The ACA lacks a severability clause, which means that if one part of the law is unconstitutional, the entire law is struck down.
The Democratic attorneys general, including AG Ferguson, want to maintain President Obama’s legacy law and continually say it is helping millions of people.
What gets left out of the debate, however, are the millions of people who lost the health insurance they liked and wanted, the millions of people who have seen their insurance premiums skyrocket, and the millions of people who were forced into the substandard health plan of Medicaid.
AG Ferguson’s press release says that “without the Affordable Care Act, hundreds of thousands of low-income Washingtonians could lose access to affordable health care, and many more could face devastating cost increases.
We cannot count on the current administration to stand up for them. I am taking this action to defend Washingtonians' access to their health care."
Where was he when hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians lost the health insurance they had before Obamacare forced them into new plans? Where was he when premiums shot up by double digits every year?
And how can he justify the fact that 80 percent of people in our state insured through Obamacare are in the low-quality Medicaid program?
Yes, many low-income people have health insurance on paper, but timely access to health care is unfortunately not guaranteed, and actually seeing a doctor is much harder under Medicaid.
Instead of filing lawsuits to preserve the failing ACA, our elected officials should be working toward meaningful health care reform that helps everyone.
They should see the patient as the most important person in the health care debate and should strive to put patients in charge of their own medical care.
The passage of the ACA has resulted in a huge increase in government control over our health care, with a significant reduction in personal freedom and patient choice.
To control costs, increase choice, and maintain or improve quality, patients must be allowed to control their own health care dollars and make their own decisions.
Patients, as health care consumers, should be allowed to be informed about, to review the prices of, and to gain access to the best health care available in a fair, open and free marketplace.
Obamacare has failed on its promises — it’s time for a better approach.
Dr. Roger Stark is a retired cardiac surgeon and a health care policy analyst at the Washington Policy Center, a nonprofit research organization with offices in Tri-Cities, Spokane, Seattle and Olympia. He is the author of numerous health care studies including The Impact of Federal Health Care Reform on Washington State and the book “The Patient Centered Solution.” Stark has testified before Congress on Medicaid, the state health insurance exchanges, and co-ops in the Affordable Care Act.
This story was originally published June 4, 2018 at 12:17 PM with the headline "State AG’s lawsuit won’t fix Obamacare – we need a health care solution that works for everyone."