Let’s ‘Smash’ Paul Ryan’s Obamacare Lite ‘to Smithereens’

By Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)

Look, I’m a “glass is half full” kind of guy. You have to be. I try to stay positive. I try to keep thinking maybe, maybe someday CONGRESS will remember the vision of our Founding Fathers … and that those we elect will represent us, not the special interests.
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But Washington politicians are so far gone that the Constitution is not even an afterthought, and their master seems to be whatever industry funds them.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We just had an election about change, about draining the swamp. President Trump promised to be different, and I believe he sincerely wants to be. But he is being taken for a ride through the swamp right now on “Obamacare Lite.”

For four STRAIGHT years, REPUBLICANS ran on repealing Obamacare, and now “Republican orthodoxy” — I’m told — is keeping insurance subsidies, mandates, taxes, and insurance company bailouts.

That’s not acceptable to me. And it isn’t keeping our promise.

Though I want to believe the glass is half full, I am tempted, very tempted, to smash a glass half full of Obamacare Lite — smash that glass to smithereens!

When did Republicans begin to believe that insurance companies should be put on the dole? That they should be bailed out when any of their customers become sick?

When did Republicans begin to believe that the federal government should force you to pay a penalty to a private insurance company if you can’t afford insurance?

When did Republicans begin to believe that we should levy a special tax penalty on those who choose to buy really good health insurance?

The current Ryan Plan — “Obamacare Lite” — is not about patients. It isn’t about better health care. It isn’t about lowering costs.

It is, plain and simple, about getting more money to the insurance companies and running more of your life from Washington.

I am a career physician. I spent years training and learning to be a doctor. I did it for patients. I don’t give a flip about guaranteeing the profits of insurance companies. And as a Senator, I shouldn’t, either.

But in Washington, somehow, the whole debate seems to be about getting people insurance instead of getting people health care.

Insurance doesn’t equate to health care. Just ask all the Obamacare recipients with $6,000 deductibles.

I’m sick of the insurance companies putting me on hold and telling me to talk to their representative in a foreign country.  Screw that.

I’m sick of the government telling me I have to buy their crappy product, and I’m sick of watching us go into more and more debt to do it.

We need a new way, and Obamacare Lite isn’t it.

I want the consumer (aka patient) to be king. I want to empower the patient to get the health care they want at the price they want.

I want to let every American be able to join a co-op to buy their health care. When that happens, the buying power returns to the patients.

Instead of patients having to kiss the boots of insurance company executives, my plan would have insurance executives come on bended knee to the patient.

The patient would be king.

Read the rest at Breitbart