Transcending Obamacare

Avik Roy’s new patient-centered plan for near-universal coverage and permanent fiscal solvency

Health care in America needed fixing long before the Affordable Care Act. Costs were high, outcomes were disappointing, and millions of Americans didn’t have health insurance. While the ACA has expanded coverage, it hasn’t solved existing systemic flaws; it papers over many of them with new layers of complexity, adding shortcomings of its own.

ACA supporters erroneously argue that the law only needs minor tweaks in order to succeed, while the push by ACA dissenters to repeal the law fails to address the problems that existed long before the bill passed. With or without the ACA, America’s health care system is in desperate need of new thinking.

Avik Roy’s Universal Exchange Plan addresses both types of flaws in the US health care system: the ones caused by the ACA and the ones that predate it. Through major reforms to Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare, the plan would transform the US health care system into one that is more available, affordable, and efficient than it has ever been. The plan would:

• Decrease individual-market insurance premiums by 17 percent by the year 2020.
• Result in a net deficit reduction of approximately $29 billion over the first 10 years and $8 trillion over the first 30 years.
• Render the Medicare Trust Fund permanently solvent.
• Expand coverage to 12.1 million more Americans than the ACA by 2025.
• Dramatically improve access to health care for poor Americans.