2014 Maryland dossier: part 7 (dealing with Obamacare)

Frankly, I’m disappointed with how this came out. One of the more important issues of our time and only one candidate is really discussing it with any sort of depth. For example, David Craig released this statement on September 30:

The Affordable Care Act has become a flash point in Congressional negotiations to continue government operations and for good reason. The unpleasant surprise with this law is that it’s not really affordable at all.  Maryland’s least expensive Obamacare plan will be 83% higher than the lowest-cost plan sold in the state this year.

People are struggling with the worst economic recovery in our lifetimes, have faced down record tax, fee and toll increases, and now they are forced to pay 83% higher insurance costs. This is a massive health care tax politicians are attempting to brand as something else, and they are forcing people to buy it.

This came after he said on August 5:

These are only the initial, visible cracks in the foundation of the health care law, which like other federal public policy experiments, Maryland rushes into without conducting due diligence. I’m concerned about the cracks we don’t see yet.

Yes, you should be concerned. You’ve identified the problem, so what will you do about it? That’s what I want to know. I can’t give any points if I don’t see solutions.

On the other hand, Ron George discusses this at least briefly on his campaign site (as part of economic development) and elaborates as he answered my direct question.

Remove Obama Care and replace with a free market model that focuses on lowering costs with the ability to purchase healthcare plans across state lines. (campaign site)

I have always fought mandates from federal to state to local and will join other Republican governors in doing so. These mandates are violations if our 10th Amendment. I have proposed opening the borders to create greater competition of insurers. A free market health care system works. But we need to have tort reform or we will lose our physicians. I founded and chair the bi-partisan Doctors Caucus with 430 physicians on our advisory. I saw this coming. I will not move ahead with any form if government run health care. Period. (direct query, November 16, 2013)

I’m a little leery of any sentence which exists as the one word “period,” given recent promises by some President, but I will take Ron at his word for the sake of argument. He picks up a significant part of the free-market solution so I’m giving him five of the seven points available.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any answer I was expecting from Charles Lollar so I can’t award him anything.

Normally I would put up the Democrats’ responses at this time but we already know they own the failure of Obamacare lock. stock, and barrel and simply promise more of the same.

Obviously there’s room for improvement for two of the candidates here, but the final four parts promise a lot more discussion. Next up is the role of government, which is somewhat of a broad subject but I think I’ll be able to focus it.