AHCA a case study in compassion, fairness and freedom

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.