You MUST Know This About Health Care Exchanges – PART 1

If you’re like me and believe ObamaCare is the worst piece of freedom-choking federal legislation this nation has ever seen, then you must know about exchanges. 

What in the world is a health care “exchange,” and why is it important to you? 

In a Nutshell…

In a nutshell, health care exchanges are state-level bureaucracies that ObamaCare must coerce into existence.  Without them, there is no ObamaCare implementation.  Without them, the federal government hasn’t the hands it needs to meddle into and control the health care of every American citizen. 

But there is so much more.  Continue reading…

Exchanges Are a “Veiled Hobson’s Choice”

From the CATO Institute, “ObamaCare Can’t Be Fixed, And Now Is The Time To Dismantle It,” author Michael Cannon leaves no question about exchanges:

“Obamacare confronts states with a veiled Hobson’s choice. The law provides that in 2014, each state will have its own health-insurance exchange where individuals who don’t have job-based coverage may purchase a federally regulated and subsidized (but “private”) health plan. States that develop and obtain federal approval of an exchange blueprint by 2013 may administer their own exchanges in 2014. In states that choose not to create an exchange, HHS will step in to create and administer one.

The veil is the assurance that states will be able to tailor their exchanges. Sebelius audaciously claims that Obamacare ‘is built on the belief that states understand their health-insurance markets better than anyone else. As such, it puts the states in the driver’s seat to lead the process.’ Other supporters have sought to frighten Republican governors into implementing the law by holding out the nightmare scenario of the federal government’s administering the exchanges. Who administers the exchanges, however, is unimportant. What counts is who writes the rules that govern them. Those rules will be written entirely in Washington.”

 Exchanges “Reduce the States to Mere Instruments of Federal Health Policy”

From Heritage Foundation’s Foundry, “I Don’t Care, You Don’t Care, No One Cares for ObamaCare,” author Julia Shaw explains it this way:

“In addition to changing the relationship between the individual and the federal government, it alters the relationship of the states to the federal government. Obamacare is a direct threat to American federalism. It promises to reduce the states to mere instruments of federal health policy.  Specifically, the requirement for state-based health insurance exchanges represents a grave threat to states’ ability to govern. These exchanges serve as the means by which individuals and businesses purchase federally standardized health insurance plans. Such exchanges determine eligibility for government subsidies for insurance, administer the distribution of those subsidies, and facilitate enrollment in Medicaid. If states refuse to set up the exchanges or are unable to do so by 2014, then the Secretary of Health and Human Services will impose them and deprive states of any independent authority to run them. If state officials want to implement something different from the exchanges—perhaps something better—they must request a waiver from the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

At the most basic level, Obama care is not a law. Although both houses passed the same piece of legislation, and the President signed it, there is no rule of action in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. What you have is a 2,700 page bundle of delegations to a plethora of existing and soon-to-be-created administrative entities. These agencies, staffed with expert bureaucrats, will create the regulations and rules of action that will govern our lives. As Moffit explains, “we are finding out what’s in the law each and every day, ranging from genuinely odd outcomes to the standard, garden-variety unintended consequences that especially bedevil health policy.” Nancy Pelosi was correct when she predicted that we would only know what was included in the bill once it was passed.”

 So… Do You Like What You’ve Read So Far? 

If you value freedom… if you value the kind of health care we’re used to here in this most exceptional of all nations… if you want every measure taken that can possibly stop ObamaCare’s clutch around freedom’s throat… then you shouldn’t like what you’ve learned about exchanges. 

There is more to come… more facts and information… who supports them, who doesn’t… who is submitting to defeat, who is standing strong and resisting… Part 2 is next… and you will really want to know.

Michelle Morin is Mom4Freedom, a conservative blogger, speaker, and patriot for freedom and America’s founding principles. Join her for valuable freedom updates here.