For fifteen years, Americans have been promised that the Affordable Care Act would make health care more affordable, more accessible, and more humane. We were told that premiums would go down.
We were told that we could keep our plans if we liked them. We were told that we could keep our doctors. Not one of those promises survived contact with reality.
Sadly, we now know it was a lie. Many of us knew then. We shouted it from the rooftops. But the bill has now been law for fifteen years, and every American has suffered because of it.
Premiums in the individual market more than doubled in the first four years alone. The Department of Health and Human Services reported that, from 2013 to 2017, average monthly premiums on the federal marketplace increased by 52%.
And it did not stop there: this year, insurers are rolling out plans averaging a 26% year-over-year increase.
Deductibles have risen alongside them. Most families seeking a basic family plan are now facing deductibles over $7,000, along with high premiums.
Before the Affordable Care Act, many families purchased plans that fit their budgets and needs. Those plans were outlawed. In fact, in 2013, up to 4.7 million individual market plans were canceled because they did not meet new federal requirements.
The promise that Americans could keep their doctors also collapsed. Narrow networks became the norm. Any employer or provider can tell you plainly that the network options have only declined.
Several states, including Wyoming, repeatedly faced a marketplace with only one option. That is not a marketplace. It is a government-managed monopoly that strips Americans of choice and raises prices through a lack of competition.
Meanwhile, doctors left private practice in record numbers, driven by administrative burdens and reimbursement changes imposed by the Affordable Care Act.
All of this dysfunction set the stage for the next phase of the left's long-term strategy.
First, flood the system with regulations that make care worse and more expensive. Second, allow frustration to grow. Third, claim the only answer is a government takeover.
They are already making that argument today, pushing for single-payer health care as the final step. But we do not need to guess what that would look like. Canada already shows us.
The Fraser Institute's Waiting Your Turn report found that Canadians wait an average of 27.4 weeks from referral to treatment. Some specialties exceed 50 weeks.
Emergency rooms are overwhelmed. Family doctors are in short supply. Thousands of Canadians travel to the United States each year for procedures they cannot access at home.
And because the system cannot treat the people it is responsible for, the government has embraced something darker.
Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying program saw 15,343 assisted deaths in 2022—and that number continues to rise sharply.
This program, known as MAID, was first presented as a compassionate option for the terminally ill. It has rapidly expanded and is on the verge of allowing those with non-fatal mental health concerns to opt out of life.
Canadians can be recommended for state-assisted death for depression, for chronic pain, or for disabilities that make life difficult.
Why? Because when the government is in total control of your healthcare system, it can choose who lives and who dies. You get no say.
This is the logical consequence of a government that cannot provide timely care but can provide a final needle. When the state controls the health care system, the state eventually decides who should live and who should die.
It is the natural fruit of a system that treats human life as a budget category.
America must refuse to walk that path. We do not need more government control. We need a return to a free market that empowers patients and doctors, not bureaucrats and price setters.
Repealing the Affordable Care Act is the necessary first step. Fifteen years of evidence prove that the law has failed. It did not bend the cost curve. It broke it.
We need real price transparency so that every patient knows exactly what procedures, medicines, and visits will cost before they ever step into an office.
No other industry in America hides prices until a bill arrives. No other industry waits until nine months after to tell you what you owe. But healthcare does it every day.
We also need strict prohibitions on price collaboration between hospitals, insurers, and large health systems. Too many major players effectively operate as regional monopolies, negotiating in back rooms while the patient is left with no alternatives.
End the collaboration and allow smaller clinics, doctors' groups, and transparent cash-based centers to compete openly and fairly.
We also need to allow insurers to innovate again. Let companies offer plans that fit different lifestyles and budgets, instead of forcing every plan to follow the same government-mandated structure.
Let young healthy individuals buy catastrophic plans. Let families choose coverage that aligns with their values. Let doctors leave the paperwork behind and return to being healers, not clerks.
For fifteen years, Americans have paid more, waited longer, and received less. The Affordable Care Act was neither affordable nor an act that cared for the American people.
It was the beginning of a slow march toward complete government control. We still have time to reverse that course. Repeal the law. Restore the market. Give families the freedom to choose and doctors the freedom to practice.
A free people deserve a free health care system. The left has shown us what government control produces. It is time to chart a better way.
