Penna Dexter

Congress’s first order of business this year is to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Some legislators advocate repealing and replacing ObamaCare simultaneously. Others favor immediate repeal and replacing later.

The real question should be: Should we replace the Affordable Care Act? And the answer is, No.

We don’t need Congress to write another gigantic law. Before the ACA, the federal government was already way too involved in healthcare. Now we’ve got a freedom-destroying entitlement that is not sustainable. We need to devolve federal control over as much of healthcare as possible and send it back to the states and to the private sector. Yes, the feds will have a role to see that the truly needy get care. But we do not need the government to create another comprehensive plan for the nation’s healthcare.

Congress took this year’s first step by passing a resolution that instructs the House and Senate to begin drafting legislation to repeal ObamaCare. Congress is to have this legislation ready by January 27th.

Repeal bills have been passed before, but without the expectation of a presidential signature. Now, it’s very serious business, which will be done using a legislative tool called budget reconciliation. This allows the Senate to pass legislation with only 51 votes, instead of the 60 votes needed to overcome the expected filibuster. Reconciliation is the method that was used to pass the Affordable Care Act in the first place. It’s tricky because reconciliation is only to be used to pass items that have a direct budgetary impact.

So — there will be more to repeal. It will involve some work to get the sixty votes in the Senate to get rid of the non-budgetary facets of the law. Once it’s done, what we will not need is another complex, mandate-ridden, top-down government program to replace ObamaCare.

The Affordable Care Act rewrote the laws regulating the nation’s health insurance. Its implementation has ruined the market. The ACA was not well-understood by the public, or even by lawmakers. Perverse financial incentives within the law are sinking it. Plus, this law is utterly destructive to freedom of conscience of both individuals and religious organizations.

Sure, people have benefited. Many get subsidies to purchase health insurance. Individuals with pre-existing health problems are now entitled to policies on the same basis and for the same price as everyone else. But individuals who actually have to pay the full tab for their insurance have seen dramatic increases in premiums and deductibles. And insurance companies are leaving the ObamaCare marketplace.

There are ways to deal with these issues that do not require that the federal government control a quarter of the nation’s economy. Before the ACA, 35 states had high-risk pools to insure people with pre-existing conditions who could not get insurance through an employer.

Let the states, providers and think tanks devise and experiment with needed reforms.

We shouldn’t replace the behemoth with another, smaller beast.