The House of Representatives is expected to vote on repealing Obamacare this week. Heritage has already laid out five of the biggest reasons for Congress to repeal the entire law but because the law and its effects are so far-reaching, here are five more:
Obamacare’s tax credits are overly complicated. The premium tax credits used to offset the cost of coverage in the law’s exchanges vary not only according to income, but also according to family size and the cost of the second-lowest cost silver plan in a recipient’s geographic area. Thus, anytime there is a change in one or more of those three variables, the recipient’s tax credit has to be recalculated. This design is far more complicated than any other health care tax credit proposal offered in Congress before, or since, Obamacare. Furthermore, relative to alternative approaches, the added complexity of the Obamacare tax credit makes it much more likely to be inaccurately calculated, and to cause taxpayers to owe substantial repayments to the Internal Revenue Service when they file their annual tax returns.
Limited insurer competition and consumer choice. Another one of the president’s many broken promises is that Obamacare would increase insurer competition and choice in the individual market. Heritage research shows that at the state level, the Obamacare exchanges are 21 percent less competitive in 2015 than the pre-Obamacare individual market was in 2013. Worse, competition at the county-level shows that in 2015, consumers on the Obamacare exchanges in one-third of all U.S. counties have only one or two insurers offering them coverage.
The Heritage Foundation is the nation’s most broadly supported public policy research institute, with more than 453,000 individual, foundation and corporate donors. Heritage, founded in February 1973, mission is
to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
