Obamacare is failing - what comes next

Now that we're learning what's in the law and how much health insurance will cost us (an estimated $20,000 in annual premiums for the  'cheapest' Obamacare plan), Obamacare is collapsing under its own weight. So what comes next?

American Enterprise Institute published a playbook for market-based health care reform recently that based on these key principles:

1) Retarget taxpayer subsidies for health care coverage: Current open-ended subsidies for private health insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid cost too much, distort health care decisions, and hide the real prices we pay, rewarding volume instead of value and quality. By converting our public financing from a "defined benefit" to a "defined contribution" model, we can control costs, trim waste, and put patients first.

2) Protect vulnerable Americans: The current health care safety net is overstretched and underfunded. We must restructure it to better protect Americans who face preexisting conditions or sudden misfortune. This change should encourage smarter health care decisions instead of subsidizing poor health habits.

3) Improve the performance of a consumer-based health system: Government officials should suggest and inform, rather than dictate, what constitutes the "best" or "better" health care. This involves opening doors to market-driven choices, not restricting access to only politically-favored types of coverage.

4) Reform Medicare and Medicaid to become more accountable, effective, and sustainable: Reforming these two dominant health coverage programs is more than just a budgetary exercise. The health of our health care system depends on ending their trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, qualityblind care, arbitrary price-fixing, intergenerational inequity, and broken promises.
 
5) Evolve employer-based coverage: Americans deserve an insurance market with far greater choice, competition, assurance, and mobility than the traditional employer-based model provides. The days of tax and regulatory policies that disproportionately favor traditional employer coverage are numbered. 

See AEI's full report: When Obamacare Fails: The Playbook for Market-Based Reform (PDF version available here).