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Curing What Ails Us: Obamacare
Curing What Ails Us: Obamacare
Feb 11, 2026 8:24 AM

Sally C. Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, is interviewed at National Review regarding her new book, The Cure For Obamacare. NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Pipes about what Obamacare means for the US, and whether or not there is a better way.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What’s the best answer to the question of what Obamacare means for the life of America?

SALLY C. PIPES: Obamacare has just celebrated its three-and-a-half-year anniversary. This is the federal government’s largest entitlement program since President Johnson’s Great Society, which he introduced in 1965. That was the year that Medicare and Medicaid were born.

Obamacare puts more control of our health-care system in the hands of the federal government. It is a program that moves this country on a clear path to European socialism.

It is my belief that Obamacare will not lead to universal coverage or bend the cost curve down. In fact, the CBO has recently announced that 33 million Americans will still be uninsured in 2023 and the cost from this year to 2022 will be $1.8 trillion, double the original estimate and the president’s goal of $900 billion over ten years.

Pipes is asked what her “cure” for Obamacare would be. She includes:

Changing the federal tax code so that individuals can also purchase coverage with pre-tax dollars;

Providing a refundable tax credit for those who need assistance and who don’t have employer-based coverage;

Expanding the availability of Health Savings Accounts;

Allowing the purchase of insurance across state lines;

Encouraging state-level medical-malpractice reform;

Reforming Medicare and Medicaid;

Eliminating the Electronic Health Record mandate; and

Eliminating the Essential Benefit mandate.

Read “There is a cure for Obamacare” at National Review Online.

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