Austin American-Statesman - Obama Can't Deliver to Americans as Promised

Op-Ed

By U.S. Senator John Cornyn

Two years ago, President Barack Obama had an opportunity to support commonsense, market-driven reforms that would have made health insurance more affordable and accessible while safeguarding the doctor-patient relationship.

Instead, the president embraced an unprecedented federal power grab that violates the Constitution and relies on Washington budget tricks to disguise the true cost of a law that has already proved unaffordable.

Indeed, as we approach the second anniversary of Obamacare, we see a litany of broken promises.

The president promised, "If you like your doctor or health care plan, you can keep it."

In fact, employers have already started dropping insurance coverage in direct response to Obamacare.

The president promised his law would "slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government." Instead, premiums for family coverage rose by 9 percent last year.

The president promised his law would not add "one dime" to the deficit.
Yet he recently announced that just one portion of the law would cost $111 billion more than originally anticipated.

In fact, once Obamacare is fully implemented, its 10-year cost will be at least $2.6 trillion, and it will increase the deficit by at least $701 billion.

The president promised his law would guarantee dependable access to health care.

What he failed to note is that access to coverage does not mean adequate access to care. More than half of the newly insured Americans under Obamacare will be shoved into Medicaid, which many physicians already refuse to accept.
The program has crippled state budgets, and Obamacare will only make this problem worse.

As for Medicare, Obamacare will make it more like Medicaid, thanks to the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a 15-member panel of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who will have authority to slash provider payment rates.

This is the wrong way to reduce Medicare spending, and that's why I have introduced legislation to abolish this advisory board.

After all, one-third of Texas physician practices are already either limiting the number of new Medicare patients they treat or not accepting any new Medicare patients.

Finally, the president promised his law would not raise taxes on the middle class.
In reality, Obamacare contains more than $550 billion worth of tax increases.
In addition, the administration is now calling the individual insurance mandate a tax in hopes of defending it from a constitutional challenge.

For all these reasons, I support repealing Obamacare and replacing it with free-market alternatives that keep patients and doctors (rather than government bureaucrats) in control of health care decisions.

Among other things, we should:

Give individuals the same health care tax incentives that employers enjoy.
Let Americans buy health insurance across state lines.

Enact strong malpractice reforms to curb frivolous lawsuits (as Texas has done quite successfully).

Make health care prices more transparent for consumers.

Government must also get out of the business of mandating one-size-fits-all programs.

On Medicaid, we should give states more flexibility to address their unique needs. And with Medicare, we should empower consumers and inject greater competition into the program.

Such reforms would reduce costs, boost access to insurance coverage, improve transparency, and shore up our entitlement programs.

That is the health care future Americans want, and that is the future we can deliver. But first, we must repeal Obamacare.

Cornyn, a Texas Republican, was first elected to the Senate in 2002.

Source