Just over a week ago, Kay Ivey, the governor of Alabama, signed into law a statute that got very little attention in the pop media -- perhaps because it is a powerful rebuke of the fascistic “Obamacare” mandates placed on insurance companies, doctors, and all American citizens.
The new law, SB94, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Arthur Orr, stipulates that Primary Care Agreements (PCAs), also known as Medical Retainer Agreements (MRAs), do not constitute insurance -- and that’s a monumental rebuff against the thousand-plus pages of “Affordable Care Act” mandates, taxes, and double-speak that have been shoved down the proverbial throats of U.S. citizens.
PCAs are like workout clubs for medicine. They’re arrangements that medical service providers have been offering more and more over the past five to 10 years, depending on the area of the nation where one resides, allowing patients to pay a yearly fee to a medical provider in exchange for a basic package of visits and services.
As Jack Spencer, of Michigan Capitol Confidential, writes:
“Under medical retainer agreements, patients make monthly payments to a physician who in return agrees to provide a menu of routine services at no extra charge. Because no insurance company stands between patient and doctor, the hassles and expense of bureaucratic red tape are eliminated, which have resulted in dramatic cost reductions. Routine primary care services (and the bureaucracy required to reimburse them) are estimated to consume 40 cents out of every dollar spent on insurance policies, so lower premiums for a given amount of coverage are another potential benefit.”
Given how Obamacare's “Guaranteed Issue” mandates have driven up costs by incentivizing younger, relatively healthier people to not buy health insurance until after they get ill, leaving relatively older, sicker people in the pools to make claims and incur higher proportions of expenses for insurance companies, this is a big, big benefit.
In fact, the new Alabama law goes a step further. According to The Tenth Amendment Center:
"The bill also provides that a physician or dentist offering, marketing, selling, or entering into physician or dentist agreements will not be required to obtain a license or certificate of authority from any state entity."
Wait -- a halt on the licensing burdens for people trying to do business? It's like manna from Heaven.
Of course, just like any opportunity legislators might offer free-thinking individuals to make their own peaceful arrangements for products and services – be they arrangements for medical care, education for their kids, food, home rentals, or sundry other things – so-called “progressives” will likely oppose this with poisonous vitriol and spiteful rhetoric. Accusations filled with class envy will likely be the tools of the hour, attached like grouper fish to the statist shark to push the idea that somehow, the “rich” will benefit from this, even as the introduction of more competition and market opportunities helps lower the very costs that Obamacare has driven up.
As we reported in April (and few pop media outlets bothered to mention), the state of Colorado just passed a similar law, so you can bet that federal “progressives” are hatching plots to smother these creative moves that open the market to more choices for customers.
Let’s hope the state politicians who stood up for the little guys (and gals) in their respective districts will stand up to federal oppression, if the wolves in D.C. do in fact decide to circle and attack. We need more freedom, more choice, and more state autonomy from unconstitutional federal mandates and meddling.