When legislators talk about health care, we're talking about people's livelihoods, their futures and, fundamentally, our credibility as an equitable, compassionate society. It makes sense, then, that as House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means Committees conduct full markups of the American Health Care Act, the bill has raised questions from people on both ends of the political spectrum. Already, we hear the cries ring out, one side saying that the AHCA should repeal without any replacement and another decrying the bill as heartless. Detractors are wrong on both counts.

Conservatives coalesce around the perennial principles of compassion, fairness and freedom. These values are mutually inclusive, and I submit that the AHCA is a case study in their application.

Republicans are not afraid that our compatriots will measure us by how well the AHCA cares for people in need of protection. The AHCA guarantees that individuals can't be denied affordable coverage because of pre-existing conditions and that young people can receive coverage under their parents' insurance plans until age 26. Under this bill, insurance companies also can't charge women higher premiums than men.

Yet concern for vulnerable Americans compels conservatives to go further. The Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion has manifold flaws, but two remain particularly harmful. First, the ACA expansion rejiggered federal funding to cover able-bodied adults to a greater extent than our elderly and disabled neighbors. The AHCA transitions away from prioritizing the former group, whom Medicaid was never designed to serve, in order to reinvest resources in our most vulnerable neighbors.

Second, Medicaid's cost has tripled since the Clinton administration, and Obamacare's expansion has torpedoed recipients' access to quality care as providers increasingly decline Medicaid patients. Imperiling the long-term viability of Medicaid in order to bring more people under an expansion umbrella that offers individuals less access to the health resources they need is a form of federal racketeering. But that's what the former administration did in order to defend its one-size-fits-all approach to health care. Unfortunately, that attempt at universal coverage has produced almost universally harrowing outcomes among Medicaid patients, and Republicans find it impossible to abandon the program to its current trajectory. We're reining in Medicaid spending today to ensure the lifeline remains solvent for our loved ones tomorrow.

The AHCA responds to the needs of the young, the elderly, the disabled and the marginalized among us. Against the plumb lines of compassion, the conservative plan safeguards Americans more comprehensively, more thoughtfully than its misguided predecessor.

But what of fairness? What of relief for the 4.7 million Americans who have been ejected from their chosen coverage since the ACA's inception or the families whose premiums now jump by about $4,300 each year? While 10.3 million individuals bought plans on the ACA exchanges, 19.2 million taxpayers opted for the individual mandate penalty or claimed an exemption.

The burden of Obamacare's tax appetite falls on families and job creators, yet its $1 trillion in new taxes couldn't deliver substantive care to middle America any more than an over-extended Medicaid could adequately serve those in need.

Penalizing businesses and industrious Americans for opting out of an ostensibly free market remains both unjust and ineffective as a means of strengthening the health care landscape. Here, we see that fairness and compassion call for the same remedya careful repeal of the mandates that drove healthier Americans out of the insurance markets and triggered the death spiral that has jeopardized affordable medical care for every single American.

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"People will offer amendments, there are unlimited amendments unlimited," McConnell said.

03/09/17 9:33 AM

Obamacare gave rise to a new American underclass who have found themselves dwelling in a land where leaping deductibles and premiums have made it impossible to make ends meet. Sustainable options for rehabilitating the market exist only in an ecosystem characterized by competition, innovation and patient empowerment.

Hope comes from restoring people's ability to make free choices in a free market, so the fundamental issue is personal agency. Conservatives believe that individual and community decisions outperform federal health care directives. The AHCA, therefore, returns agency to patients, doctors and states by removing the mandates that punish personal choice, doubling the size and utility of health savings accounts, and giving states wide flexibility in administering federal Medicaid dollars in order to meet the particular needs of their unique populations.

At great personal cost to millions of Americans, we have learned from the unforced errors of the Affordable Care Act. When health care is filtered through bureaucrats, we see patient choices evaporate, premium and deductible costs surge, and resources contract as the market descends into a death spiral. Republicans find this brave new world unacceptable, and we're responding accordingly.

House committees are currently marking up their respective portions of this bill, considering numerous amendments as both parties weigh in through a process that is so transparent that the entire bill text is available online at readthebill.gop. And while the American Health Care Act may not be an ideal remedy for every Obamacare ailment, it does bring conservative ideals to bear on what may be the greatest legislative challenge of our generation.

The AHCA reduces government reach, restores personal freedom and begins to repair the injustices that Obamacare imposed on our families and friends. We care too much about our fellow Americans to let reckless laws come to fruition at their great expense.

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Conservative insurgents in the House and Senate oppose the bill.

03/09/17 8:52 AM

Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga, is Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference.

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AHCA a case study in compassion, fairness and freedom - Washington Examiner