Michael F. Cannon 🇮🇪 🇺🇸
@mfcannon.bsky.social
1.5K followers 220 following 1.1K posts
“An influential health care wonk at the libertarian Cato Institute“ – Washington Post. “A pleasant discovery” – Capitalism magazine. Washingtonian’s “Most Influential People” in DC 2021-present.
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mfcannon.bsky.social
To spur Congress to make health insurance affordable, @realDonaldTrump should unilaterally end the illegal exemption from Obamacare that President Obama granted Congress.

www.washingtontimes....
mfcannon.bsky.social
Democrats fear that if consumers see the full cost of Obamacare’s regulations, they won’t voluntarily sign up for overpriced junk.

Democrats want to offer subsidies to people earning up to $600K, including $7K subsidies for households earning $500K.

www.washingtontimes....
mfcannon.bsky.social
We are all victims of these government failures.
mfcannon.bsky.social
...trading a temporary extension of ObamaCare subsidies for the wealthy for a permanent restoration of the freedom to choose better, more affordable health insurance would not just be a good deal.

It would be an impressive one.

www.nationalreview.c... @CatoInstitute @CatoHealth
The Only Defensible Obamacare Deal | National Review
Employers and individuals alike must be free to choose better, more affordable health insurance.
www.nationalreview.com
mfcannon.bsky.social
Congress absolutely should not extend Obamacare subsidies for the wealthy. Not by one day. Not by one penny.

At some point, however, a deal might be unavoidable. If that time comes...
mfcannon.bsky.social
Republicans should simultaneously free all employers and individuals to purchase any health plan available in any U.S. territory.

Most Obamacare enrollees could buy quality coverage at a lower premium from the same insurer they have right now.
mfcannon.bsky.social
Obama’s solution was to exempt U.S. territories from Obamacare’s harmful regulations.

For more than a decade, people in Puerto Rico & the U.S. Virgin Islands have had more freedom than mainland U.S. citizens to choose their health insurance.

Everyone deserves that freedom.
mfcannon.bsky.social
Freeing people from Obamacare holds a bipartisan pedigree — from none other than @BarackObama himself.

In 2014, he recognized Obamacare’s regulations are so destabilizing and make health insurance so expensive, they would destroy health insurance markets in U.S. territories.
mfcannon.bsky.social
The resulting health plans would be higher quality than Obamacare plans because they would not face Obamacare’s incentives to discriminate against the sick.

mfcannon.bsky.social
Republicans could free consumers to choose high-quality, affordable coverage by codifying Trump’s 2018 rules and writing those consumer protections into permanent law.
mfcannon.bsky.social
CBO found Trump’s changes enabled most enrollees to obtain comprehensive coverage at premiums as much as 60% below the lowest-price Obamacare plans—and often with “lower deductibles or wider provider networks.”

Imagine not needing subsidies to get quality health insurance.
mfcannon.bsky.social
In 2018, @realDonaldTrump removed unnecessary restrictions on those plans, freeing them to offer greater consumer protections than any past administration.
mfcannon.bsky.social
In 1996, a Republican Congress and President @BillClinton exempted so-called short-term health insurance from all federal health insurance regulations.

A Democratic Congress and President @BarackObama likewise exempted those plans from Obamacare.
mfcannon.bsky.social
Republicans should give consumers that freedom by building on President Trump’s biggest first-term health care victory, which freed consumers from the pain of Obamacare.
mfcannon.bsky.social
Here’s a crazy thought:

If government regulations are making your health insurance too expensive or limiting your choice of treatments or providers, those regulations should be optional.

You should have the right to choose better, more affordable health insurance.
mfcannon.bsky.social
And still, the Democrats’ subsidies would do absolutely nothing to reduce Obamacare’s cost or stop its regulation-driven discrimination against the sick.
mfcannon.bsky.social
The CBO estimates that with Democrats' Obamacare subsidies for the wealthy, about one-third of enrollees would pay nothing toward their health plans — a dynamic that is already causing an explosion of fraud.
mfcannon.bsky.social
Democrats are the party of the little guy, so naturally they want permanent subsidies for people earning up to $600,000 per year. Households earning $500,000 could get $7,000.

More than $440 billion would go to private health insurance companies and $48 billion to bondholders.
mfcannon.bsky.social
Democrats blame insurers, but @MikeGeruso says Obamacare's regulation-driven discrimination is “beyond any insurance carrier’s ability to control.”
mfcannon.bsky.social
Former Biden economic adviser @MikeGeruso found Obamacare itself is causing “backdoor discrimination” against patients with chronic illnesses, limiting their choice of treatments, and costing them thousands of dollars annually.
mfcannon.bsky.social
The Obamacare regulations that Democrats claim protect patients with preexisting conditions are instead making discrimination worse.
mfcannon.bsky.social
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that Obamacare is doubling premiums for most Exchange enrollees.

Premiums will rise another 20 percent in 2026.
mfcannon.bsky.social
Those subsidies should have expired with every other emergency measure, yet Democrats kept them through this year.

Why? Because Democrats hope government subsidies will numb voters to the pain that Obamacare causes.
mfcannon.bsky.social
Democrats are continuing to block a deal to end the government “shutdown.”

They say they won’t vote to pay federal workers—my wife is working, without pay—unless Republicans extend the temporary Obamacare subsidies that Congress created during the Covid-19 pandemic.
mfcannon.bsky.social
That weak approach would protect @TheDemocrats from accountability for Obamacare’s junk coverage and outrageous premiums.