By Rep. Darrell Issa<\/p>\n
[Editor\u2019s note: This op-ed first ran in the San Diego Union-Tribune on May 11]<\/em><\/p>\n If your roof sprung a leak, you wouldn\u2019t wait for it to collapse before making repairs. Such is the dilemma we encounter in our health care system. The Affordable Care Act is on the brink of total failure, crumpling under the pressure of its canceled plans, skyrocketing premiums, burdensome regulations, and sea of broken promises.<\/p>\n We have limited time left to act and save millions from the consequences of its wreckage.<\/p>\n This [month], the House of Representatives approved legislation that begins the process repairing the damage \u201cObamacare\u201d has done to our health care system. I supported the bill because it is was a first-step, and our best shot, to make good on the commitment I\u2019ve made to deliver real relief from Obamacare\u2019s tax hikes, rising premiums, and ever-dwindling options for care.<\/p>\n Just take a look at the numbers.<\/p>\n This year in California, monthly health insurance premiums will increase by an average of 13 percent on the state\u2019s exchanges created by Obamacare. Nationwide? Premiums have risen an average of $5,000 a year. These increases force families to pay more and get less, in part, from the litany of Washington mandates and regulations, but also because the law never addressed the underlying causes of the rising costs of health care in the first place.<\/p>\n These problems have only compounded as competition continues to be pushed out.<\/p>\n This year, three of the nation\u2019s largest health insurers announced they would no longer participate in Covered California. Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealth all announced they will be pulling out of California\u2019s health care exchanges, deciding that even with billions in government subsidies and a backstop bailout for losses, providing coverage under Obamacare\u2019s mandates still didn\u2019t make much financial sense.<\/p>\n The side effects are a doozy: less choices for patients, and less competition to drive down prices.<\/p>\n Outside of California, the numbers are even worse. In more than one-third of the country, Americans no longer have any choice at all in their insurance provider, since only one insurer is now left to offer coverage on their state\u2019s exchanges.<\/p>\n What protection do you have, really, when there\u2019s no insurance left to buy? Yet, that\u2019s exactly where Obamacare is headed, unless we act soon.<\/p>\n Across California, and the country, families are rightly concerned about the future of their health care. These families are exactly why we\u2019re working so hard on reform.<\/p>\n For years, constituents have approached me, sent me letters, spoken to me at town halls, and told me story after story about how Obamacare has negatively impacted their lives, and why it needs to be repealed. Standing by and doing nothing simply isn\u2019t acceptable. Yet, even as we\u2019ve moved forward with repeal, we\u2019ve constantly worked to protect the most vulnerable among us.<\/p>\n Despite what some have said, the plan we\u2019ve passed explicitly prohibits insurance companies from denying access to health coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and, furthermore, empowers states to find new and innovative ways to bring down costs for these populations.<\/p>\n Take, Maine for example. In 2011, the state\u2019s individual insurance market was being pushed into a death spiral as insurers continued to drop out and premiums continued soaring, so the state\u2019s leaders decided to try something new. Maine created an \u201cinvisible\u201d high-risk pool to provide support for individuals with pre-existing conditions (they called it \u201cinvisible\u201d because, unlike other states, it didn\u2019t remove individuals with pre-existing conditions from the traditional insurance market or even charge higher premiums) and relaxed its premium rating rules.<\/p>\n The result of this innovation? Patients of all ages saw premiums come down as much $7,000 a year. As premiums decreased, more people enrolled in the market \u2014\u00a0bringing down prices even further \u2014\u00a0and ultimately saved the state\u2019s insurance market from near collapse.<\/p>\n Maine\u2019s unique approach worked because states \u2014\u00a0not DC bureaucrats 3,000 miles away \u2014\u00a0know best how to meet the needs of their people. Supporting more of this local, fresh thinking is a key part of our plan and what we need to invest more in if we\u2019re going to bring down costs for everyone.<\/p>\n Washington\u2019s top-down approach has failed. As the bill heads to the Senate, it will undergo many improvements and I\u2019ll continue my fight to strengthen it even further. But the choice we have now is simple. We can stand by idly and watch health care get more expensive and less accessible, or we can take action now. For years, we\u2019ve promised to repeal Obamacare and put patients back in the driver\u2019s seat of their health care.<\/p>\n Now\u2019s our chance to deliver.<\/p>\n \u2014Rep. Darrel Issa\u00a0is the US Representative for California\u2019s 49th Congressional District and a Senior Member of the House Judiciary Committee.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Rep. Darrell Issa [Editor\u2019s note: This op-ed first ran in the San Diego Union-Tribune on May 11] If your roof sprung a leak, you wouldn\u2019t wait for it to collapse before making repairs. Such is the dilemma we encounter in our health care system. The Affordable Care Act is on the brink of total […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1062,"featured_media":229456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Guest Editorial: Now is the time to get rid of Obamacare","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11558,11593,11552],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mission-times-courier","category-no-images","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1062"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}