paraphrase and summarize

Dr. Avik Roy, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research says that “there is no doubt that health care today is more costly than it would have been without Obamacare.” With this in mind, my group is here today to prove that it is in the interest of the United States to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act of 2010, commonly known as “ObamaCare,” and return to the issue of health-care reform in general.

We are not debating the morality of making healthcare affordable, we are simply stating that our economy cannot sustain the Affordable Care Act because it is, in fact, not affordable. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. currently spends 18% of its gross domestic product on healthcare alone, more than any other nation in the world. This unprecedented allocation of the GDP further increases the federal deficit and demonstrates the outrageous price tag of the Affordable Care Act.

Furthermore, the ACA creates a shortage of primary care physicians and specialists by artificially driving the demand curve to the right without creating incentives to increase the supply in response. Consumers suffer because of this: they experience lower quality of care, longer wait times, and greater difficulty finding solutions for their healthcare needs. By reducing price signals and market incentives in favor of greater reliance on government guarantees, health care costs may rise even further, creating greater longer-run harms.  

Likewise, subsidized health care unintentionally hurts those it was created to help. The benefits of the ACA come at a cost to healthcare providers and employers who then pass their loses off on their employees and consumers. To demonstrate, some businesses have started cutting employee hours or hiring part-time workers instead of full-time workers to lower operation cost. Consequently, the very people the ACA was intended to help are harmed because their workweeks and paychecks are cut short.

Additional negative consequences of the Affordable Care Act are higher premiums, higher out-of-pocket costs for lifesaving specialty drugs, greater rationing of care, less competition, and fewer choices. These same troubles facing the ACA caused a nearly identical healthcare reform to fail in 1993. Without any solutions for these pressing concerns, what’s to stop the same thing from happening to the Affordable Care Act now?

In conclusion, the cost of the Affordable Care Act is not affordable at all. The unmatched spending increases the federal deficit. The removed market signals create shortages. The mandated costs cut worker hours. Overall, the ACA is too expensive. And because of this, we believe that it is in the interest of the United States to repeal the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

Thank you.