As a Canadian and firsthand witness of Canada’s government-run health care system, Sally Pipes is warning that Obamacare will exacerbate the existing problems of rising costs and lack of access in the American health care system.
At a recent Heritage event, Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, joined other health policy experts to speak on the need to repeal Obamacare. Pipes is the author of two books on the new health care law, The Truth about Obamacare and The Pipes Plan.
At the panel and in her first book, The Truth About Obamacare, Pipes outlined the many problems with the left’s big-government approach to health care reform. She points out that this approach adversely affects patients by creating long waiting lines for care, rationing, drug shortages, and decreases in quality. She explains that Obamacare will limit patients’ options, especially the kind of insurance they can purchase and the providers they can access.
Pipes points out that Americans can absolutely benefit from real health care reform, but Obamacare just isn’t the right way to do it. She writes, “Obamacare is failing on both costs and coverage because it doesn’t address the fundamental reason that health costs are skyrocketing and that insurance remains out of reach for many. Instead, the law tries to impose ‘just’ outcomes by government fiat…That’s a recipe for higher—not lower—health costs.”
In her second book, The Pipes Plan, Pipes explains her proposal to reform health care by empowering patients and their doctors, not government bureaucrats. In particular, she suggests that reform should include:
– Encouraging the use of health savings accounts (HSAs)
– Changing the tax code to end the preference for employer-based insurance
– Allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines
– Having states remove mandates that unnecessarily increase the cost of insurance
– Passing tort reform
– Fixing Medicare by raising the retirement age, utilizing income adjustment, and introducing a premium support or voucher system
– Fixing Medicaid by giving block grants to the states to allow them to develop their own innovative ways to solve the program’s problems
– Funding high-risk pools to help provide coverage to those with pre-existing conditions
Pipes concludes by calling for Obamacare’s full repeal: “Lawmakers must disassemble this terrible law and replace it with market-oriented reforms. It’s eminently possible. Nothing more than America’s future and wealth depend on it.”
To watch the entire event, click here.
Kevin D. Dayaratna is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm
