Despite President Obama’s recent declaration that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — will be “a lasting legacy that I am extraordinarily proud of,” the legislation remains under vigorous attack. Polls demonstrate that up to 60 percent of Americans want it repealed. While many in the newly elected Congress focus their attention on reversing or limiting the implementation of Obamacare, the courts are assessing the constitutionality of some of its fundamental edicts.
Constitutional questions aside, a whole host of concerns about specific impacts of the PPACA underlie the opposition to it, including the fact that the law fails to control costs as calculated by the government itself. The major objections to Obamacare rest on four of its fundamental features, all of which represent a marked shift of authority and control of health-care decisions to the government: 1) mandating insurance coverage while eliminating insurance options such as high-deductible plans with health savings accounts (HSAs), which people increasingly prefer; 2) shifting millions more into already unsustainable public health-insurance programs; 3) directly or indirectly limiting access to technology by reducing payments for specialty medical care and limiting patient-driven options on available care; and 4) significantly increasing taxes to pay for the plan. While stopping short of the overt single-payer system openly desired by our president and many Democratic congressional leaders, the PPACA inarguably moves dramatically toward many of those same endpoints.
