From a press release out of Rep. Bill Cassidy’s office…

Today, Congressman Bill Cassidy participated in the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing entitledUnaffordable: Impact of Obamacare on Americans’ Health Insurance Premium. Following the hearing, Dr. Cassidy released the attached plan for private insurance reform.

“I voted against the health care law because I knew it was a bad deal for the American people and I continue to work for its repeal. We must lessen the negative impact of Obamacare on Americans and work to provide Americans with access to affordable health care coverage in the exchanges,” said Dr. Cassidy.

Cassidy continued, “We must ensure that the full costly effect of Obamacare does not fall on the American people in tough economic times. This plan would provide much-needed relief to Americans seeing more and more of their paychecks eaten up by Obamacare.”

Cassidy’s release contained a summary of the plan, which reads as follows…

The Obamacare Disaster

Obamacare is a bad deal for the American people because it does nothing to decrease the cost of health care. In fact, it significantly increases health care costs by adding more government bureaucracy into the health care system, reducing patient choice. For example, consider the story of Hope under Obamacare:
Hope is a 30-year-old women from Baton Rouge who makes $22,340 a year at a local fast food chain. Because of Obamacare, Hope’s company decided to drop employee coverage and put Hope onto the exchange. Hope liked her old employer plan, it covered 80 percent of her yearly health care costs. But that plan is no longer an option and Hope has to choose a new plan to comply with the President’s individual mandate. Hope looks at her age and good health and chooses the cheapest plan in the exchange, which only covers about 60 percent of her costs. Even with exchange subsidies, Hope is required to pay $1,405 out-of-pocket every single year just on premiums. Since Hope’s new plan is less generous, she has to pay more when she uses health care. In her first year on the exchange, Hope is badly injured in a car accident. She is required to pay over $6,000 – the out-of-pocket limit for a bronze plan. Even with the premium subsidy, Hope still has to pay nearly 30 percent of her income on health care, and only has $16,290 for all her other expenses throughout the year.

Many Americans will find themselves in Hope’s situation if Obamacare is implemented. The evidence continues to poor in that the law will be unaffordable for American’s. According to a survey published by the American Action Forum, younger populations could face premium increases as much as 203% once the full effect of Obamacare kicks in. Additionally, a new report by the actuary firm Oliver Wyman predicts that premiums will increase by over 40 percent for people 20-29-years-old as a direct result of a new regulation in Obamacare.

Path to Affordable Health Care

I voted against the health care law because I knew it was a bad deal for the American people and I continue to work for its repeal. While we work to achieve that ultimate goal, we must lessen the impact of Obamacare on Americans. Toward that end, I propose we change the law to provide Americans with access to affordable health care coverage in the exchanges. To do this, we must do the following:

• Allow individuals access to a consumer-driven health savings account (HSA) option on the exchanges.
• The option would allow individuals to put their premium subsidies into an HSA and save the money over time so they can use it when they need it. Individuals or family members could also contribute to the HSA tax-exempt. This would allow the individual to save their unused health dollars year after year and allow it to accumulate.
• HSA dollars could also be transferred from one HSA to another between families or passed down in an estate.
• The plan would include catastrophic coverage in case the individual has a major unexpected illness that is more expensive than the money in their HSA.

This plan would be significantly cheaper than plans available on the exchange now. Since the individual would be able to accumulate their health care dollars year after year, none of the government health care dollars would go toward non-healthcare expenses. Additionally, it would empower beneficiaries to engage in their own health care.

We must ensure that the full costly effect of Obamacare does not fall on the American people in tough economic times. This plan would provide much-needed relief to Americans seeing more and more of their paychecks eaten up by Obamacare.