Trump's Pick of Price Puts Obamacare in the Crosshairs

Opponents of Obamacare should be greatly encouraged by President-elect Donald Trump's pick of House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Price, an M.D., has advanced the most serious Obamacare alternative to date on Capitol Hill. His legislation (H.R. 2300) is co-sponsored by 84 House members, including Jeb Hensarling, Mike Pompeo (Trump's pick to lead the CIA), Trey Gowdy, and Marsha Blackburn. Bill Kristol called Price's alternative "the strongest Obamacare alternative offered in Congress to date" upon its introduction in 2015.

Price's bill, which I helped draft, would fix what the federal government had broken even before Obamacare was passed and made things so much worse. Specifically, it would address the tax inequity that has plagued our health insurance system since the World War II era. There's no good reason why those who get health insurance through their job should get a tax break, while those who have to buy insurance on their own do not. Yet that's how things have been for seven decades.

Price would largely end this tax inequity. He would do so by offering a simple, non-income-tested, age-based tax credit to those who buy health insurance on their own. Everyone could quickly see what their tax credit would be: $1,200 for those under the age of 35, $2,100 for those between 35 and 50, and $3,000 for those 50 and over, plus $900 per child.

Such flat tax credits, aside from three simple age-defined brackets, would encourage people to buy genuine ("catastrophic") insurance, rather than the sort of prepaid health care that increases the middleman's role and raises costs. Anyone who buys insurance for less than the value of their tax credit could pocket the difference in a health savings account (HSA).

Importantly, Price's legislation would also offer a one-time, $1,000-per-person HSA tax credit to anyone who has, or who opens, an HSA. The combination of Price's proposals would help put people in control of their own healthcare dollars, encourage them to shop for value, make prices appear, lower costs, and revitalize the individual market. And by repealing Obamacare, the plan would restore liberty and keep the federal government from taking over American medicine.