Heartland Institute Experts React to Latest Delay in Obamacare Mandates
CHICAGO, IL (PRWEB) December 20, 2013 -- The Obama administration announced it is lifting the mandate to buy insurance - as well as the penalty for not buying insurance - from those who had their individual coverage plans canceled this year. People in such a situation will be allowed buy “catastrophic” health insurance plans, which were outlawed by the Affordable Care Act.
The following statements from health care policy and legal experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at jlakely(at)heartland(dot)org and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 312/731-9364.
“By using the ‘hardship exemption’ loophole for those who have lost their insurance and are unable to sign up for subsidized coverage, the president is admitting the hardship he has caused millions of Americans by disrupting the existing health insurance market and eliminating insurance plans for countless Americans, offering them insurance that costs them more and offers narrower networks, disrupting the care of the sick and raising costs for millions.”
Benjamin Domenech
Senior Fellow, Health Care Policy
The Heartland Institute
bdomenech(at)heartland(dot)org
703/509-1741
“The decision to grant ‘hardship’ waivers to millions of Americans losing their coverage as a result of Obamacare barely begins to correct the massive damage inflicted by Obamacare on an already troubled health care system. For political reasons the administration has chosen to grant special exemptions for some Americans, while others who also can’t find affordable coverage they want to buy are still subject to a tax for not purchasing insurance."
“While it’s unlikely that the Obama administration will grant similar hardship waivers to tens of millions of other Americans struggling under Obamacare, this decision has shown that a future president may be able to grant widespread waivers under the law. Hopefully this will be a focus of discussion during the 2016 presidential nomination and election process, and candidates will recognize it as an opportunity to effectively repeal the individual mandate through executive action.”
Sean Parnell
Policy Advisor
The Heartland Institute
sean(at)impactpolicymanagement(dot)com
312/377-4000
Parnell is the author of The Self-Pay Patient.
“Rarely, if ever, in the history of the Republic has so little been accomplished for so few by so many with so much noise and distraction - while wasting so much time, energy, and resources.
“Years of partisan bickering, litigation, and a so-called ‘government shutdown,’ it transpires, will in the end have been unnecessary as the people watch Obamacare and its namesake administration collapse under their own weight.
“Given that nationalized health care has been a ‘progressive’ goal for over a century, one would have thought that a Democratic party bent on forcing it on the people with a razor-thin partisan majority would have spent the next three years making sure that its ‘system’ worked. It appears instead to have been merely exhortation.”
David L. Applegate
Policy Advisor, Legal Affairs
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“Democrats like to say Obamacare is the ‘law of the land.’ Not really. It is just the name of the law.”
Jane M. Orient, M.D.
Executive Director
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
janeorientmd(at)gmail(dot)com
520/323-3110
The Heartland Institute is a 29-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
Jim Lakely, Heartland Institute, +1 (312) 377-4000, [email protected]
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