By Michael Arthur Vacca, Esq.
The Affordable Care Act should have protected the freedom of choice in health care and furthered access through incentivizing competition in the marketplace. Instead, it fines Americans who are without health care because they believe that they cannot afford it. This is known as the Individual Mandate. It is hard to see how fining people for something they cannot afford improves access to health care, and it certainly does not preserve the freedom to choose health care. Consequently, the Affordable Care Act gives up the freedom to choose health care and, in return, gains not universal access to health care, but nothing. There are still people who lack health care and many people who have health insurance have such high deductibles that they pay for almost everything out of pocket anyway. Of course, the entitlement to health care enshrined in The Affordable Care Act not only forces people to buy health care; it forces employers and others to purchase health care, such as contraceptives, that is inconsistent with their deeply held religious convictions and, arguably, not even health care. Thankfully, this is in the process of being reversed by the Trump administration, and for good reason. If pregnancy is a good thing and not a disease, why is preventing it deemed health care? So in point of fact, the government under the Affordable Care Act forces people to pay for its version of health care, and the courts are the only check on otherwise plenary authority to define and implement health care as the government sees fit. No wonder the U.S. Supreme Court has already encountered a multitude of cases regarding the ACA’s Contraceptive Mandate.”
Sources:
1) http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/04/news/economy/obamacare-affordable/index.html
2) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/31/trump-administration-reversing-obamacares-birth-control-mandate/102346078/
3) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/05/16/supreme-court-contraception-mandate-obama-religious-objectors/82358568/
