Rep. Ron DeSantis highlighted five key facts about the GOP\u2019s Obamacare replacement bill on Thursday\u2019s Breitbart News Daily.<\/b>
\nThe new plan is closer to full repeal than the old GOP bill was. \u201cThe original Ryan bill left the architecture of Obamacare in place, which is responsible for driving up premiums and deductibles for millions and millions of Americans, \u201d DeSantis recalled.
\u201cConservatives looked at that and said that\u2019s the main reason people hate Obamacare, we\u2019 ve got to deal with that. The problem, though, that we had is that we have a critical mass of members who, even though they campaigned on repealing Obamacare, did not want to roll back the architecture of Obamacare, so we were kind of at a standstill, \u201d he explained. \u201cAnd then, with the work of people like Mark Meadows and Tom McArthur from New Jersey, what we were able to do is say, \u2018Let\u2019s at least give the states the ability to opt out of the Obamacare regulatory structure and set up functioning markets, which will obviously allow people to have cheaper policies and will lower premiums for people.\u2019 \u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s not ideal, \u201d DeSantis conceded. \u201cWe should just repeal it all. That would be the easiest thing.\u201d
It shows Republicans can work together to craft a replacement bill. \u201cI think the big upshot from this debate, what its revealed, is that people had always said \u2018oh, these Republicans, they had seven years to come up with a replacement and they can\u2019 t do it.\u2019 That\u2019s not really the issue. I mean, there\u2019s issues with the replacement that I would change if I could, but it is what it is. I think most members are fine with it, \u201d said DeSantis.
He pointed out the political reality that Republicans \u201cdon\u2019 t have the 216 votes to repeal\u201d Obamacare outright.
\u201cEven though we voted to do it time after time, now we\u2019 re here, the iron\u2019s hot, and we have some members that don\u2019 t want to do that. That\u2019s why we ended up in this compromise situation. But I believe, and other conservatives believe, that this is as good as we can do right now, given where our votes are, \u201d he said.
It will lower insurance premiums. DeSantis said the new bill \u201cprovides a path to lower premiums in a way that the original bill I think did not.\u201d
\u201cActually there was a good argument that original bill, by retaining the Obamacare regulations and insurance mandates, but defunding the individual mandate for healthy people to purchase insurance, actually may have created more adverse selection in the insurance markets, which would have of course raised premiums, \u201d he noted. \u201cI think this bill corrects for that and gives governors the ability to really put some market forces back into their insurance markets. That\u2019s what we\u2019 re looking to do.\u201d
It takes care of people with pre-existing conditions. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to point out, people act like before Obamacare there was no coverage for pre-existing conditions. The fact is, if you either got your insurance through employer, Medicare. V. A. \u2013 pretty much everything but the individual market \u2013 pre-existing conditions were covered. It wasn\u2019 t an issue, \u201d DeSantis contended.
\u201cNow in the individual insurance market there were roughly, between 2010 \u2013 2014, Obamacare had a pre-existing insurance program before the exchanges stood up, \u201d he recalled. \u201cThere were about 130,000 people that signed up for that who were either denied coverage, or denied coverage that was even remotely affordable for them.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s a legitimate issue, but it\u2019s a very discrete issue, \u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating when the media will act like without Obamacare, you wouldn\u2019 t have any protection for pre-existing conditions for 300 million-plus Americans. That\u2019s just not true. Second of all, if you really said pre-existing was the reason you needed Obamacare, you didn\u2019 t need to do a 2,000-page bill. You could have done a five-page bill. You could have appropriated money for those folks. This way, you would have saved all the crippling premium increases and deductible increases, and the plan cancellations, and all the stuff that\u2019s happened with Obamacare.
It cleans up the expensive morass of Obamacare regulations. \u201cOur plan has always been as Republicans \u2013 whether it\u2019s Tom Price\u2019s plan, whether it\u2019s Paul Ryan\u2019s Better Way, anything that had been proposed \u2013 was you have to fully repeal Obamacare, \u201d DeSantis said.
\u201cThe regulatory structure is dysfunctional. It leads to insolvent markets, \u201d he explained. \u201cAnd then when you replace it, you do provide continuous coverage protection so that the insurance companies can\u2019 t kick you off if you get sick, or jack up your rates, as long as you\u2019 re paying your premiums.\u201d
\u201cIf people are not paying premiums and are effectively uninsurable, you still provide a backstop for them, but it\u2019s a general public fund, rather than imposing those costs on the premium holders and jacking up their rates, \u201d he added. \u201cSo it\u2019s a way to deal with folks who are not insurable under the traditional definition of insurance that also spares policyholders and the individual market.\u201d
\u201cI mean right now, eHealth.com just came out with how much it costs right now, and then they sell individual market plans unsubsidized, for a family of four the average per-year and premium costs right now: $14,300, \u201d DeSantis noted. \u201cThat\u2019s more than some people\u2019s mortgage payments, depending on what part of the country you live in, so that\u2019s not a sustainable system. That is being driven because of the dysfunctional Obamacare regulatory structure.\u201d
\u201cThis bill, it not only deals with pre-existing conditions, it deals with it three different ways. There\u2019s a massive $100 billion fund. Then there was a Palmer-Schweikert $15 billion fund that is modeled after the main invisible risk-sharing program. And then there is another $8 billion just with this Fred Upton stuff, \u201d he said, the latter a reference to Rep. Fred Upton\u2019s (R-MI) decision to support the bill after an $8 billion amendment to protect people with pre-existing conditions was added.
\u201cSo you\u2019 re talking about probably 100,000 to 130,000 people, but maybe even less because anyone that has a policy now, it doesn\u2019 t matter if you have pre-existing conditions, you can renew it and they\u2019 re not going to jack up your rates. So it\u2019s taken care of in multiple ways, but basically the media sets a narrative, and I think some Republicans unfortunately accept this, that Obamacare is the only way to deal with pre-existing conditions. We\u2019 ve never accepted that previous to this debate. We shouldn\u2019 t accept it, \u201d DeSantis urged.
\u201cActually, Obamacare is not good for pre-existing conditions because if you\u2019 re in Iowa and you have a pre-existing condition, and the insurers are totally fleeing the market now, guess what? Nobody gets issued a policy at all, \u201d he added. \u201cSo yes, under the law you can\u2019 t be discriminated against because of that, but if no one\u2019s issuing a policy to anybody, a lot of good that does you. The first thing you have to have if you want to protect both healthy and sick people is a functioning, solvent market, and Obamacare clearly doesn\u2019 t deliver that.\u201d
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6: 00 a.m. to 9: 00 a.m. Eastern.
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