| Hello John, With just a few words, President Trump has turned the health care debate on its head. Here’s what the president said: “We want a health care system where we pay the money to the people instead of the insurance companies.” The next day, he added: “Republicans should give money directly to your personal health savings accounts.” The president’s idea is good. Let’s empower doctors and patients — not government or insurance companies — and introduce market-based competition where there is almost none. If enacted, this would be a game changer for your family’s health care. Here’s why: - The debate on health care has focused on how much more authority we could give to the federal government and insurance companies.
- Now we’ll be debating how much authority we can give to consumers and patients to make their own decisions on what kind of health care coverage they want for themselves by expanding access to money-saving HSAs. It’s a sea change!
Last week, the Washington Examiner ran an op-ed I wrote about how President Trump’s HSA idea has put the Democrats in a tough spot. They can either continue supporting the failed Obamacare program with more taxpayer dollars, or they can join the Republicans in pushing for a system that funds consumers, not the government or insurance companies. I encourage you to read it! As I state in the op-ed: Democrats are vulnerable on healthcare because they are aligned with Big Insurance. Obamacare sends more than $100 billion a year to insurance companies, which have basically become overpriced, highly profitable, government-regulated utilities. Now, it would be one thing to continue advocating billions and billions of dollars more for Obamacare if the program were delivering high-quality coverage at an affordable price. But it’s not. Not even close. From the op-ed: Yet all those billions [to Obamacare] fail to deliver actual affordability. Since 2014, ACA premiums have tripled, deductibles have doubled, and the cost of an average family health insurance plan has risen by 60%, to more than $27,000. Nearly half of U.S. adults worry they won’t be able to afford healthcare next year. Meanwhile, access to doctors and hospitals has shrunk, insurer claim-denial rates have grown tenfold, and patient wait times have reached historic highs. Here’s the bottom line: Expanding HSAs, as the president suggested, is the best way to give Americans like you more choice and control over their own health care decisions and inject more competition into the system. And whether Democrats realize it or not, the USS Obamacare is sinking. Instead of bailing it out with more billions, Trump is calling the Democrats’ bluff and forcing them to choose between their insurance buddies and the patients they claim to care about. So please, read the op-ed to stay informed about how this change could benefit your family. | 
