Washington, D.C. — In response to today's speech from President Barack Obama on his deficit reduction proposals, Independent Women's Voice President & CEO Heather Higgins today released the following statement:
"In his speech today, President Obama acknowledged that Medicare and Medicaid are systems in peril that are in desperate need of reform. On this point, he is correct.
"Medicaid and Medicare are systems that currently ill-serve their clientele and are gravely in need of true reform that will enhance individual’s choices and drastically increase the quality of care received under their administration.
“Unfortunately, President Obama offered very little in the way of details of how he proposes to address these entitlement systems, their ballooning costs and the threats they pose to our nation’s fiscal well-being.
"What details he did offer should be troubling to all Americans.
"President Obama’s so-called solutions would increase centralized power in Washington, D.C. and give even more authority to unelected bureaucrats and so-called experts to impose one-size-fits-all solutions, in spite of the will of the American people.
"Rather than embrace the power of the marketplace, President Obama believes the answers to be government-dictated price controls and the further empowerment of unchecked and unaccountable government agencies like the Independent Payment Advisory Board created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — ObamaCare.
"President Obama also ignored the harm caused to our medical system and our nation’s financial condition by ObamaCare.
“ObamaCare seriously diminishes quality of care and greatly reduces individual choice and control in health care decisions. It will have an exasperating effect on our deficit spending and will exponentially increase our national debt — the precise problems President Obama purported to be addressing today. And this is on top of the explicit unconstitutionality of the law.
"There can be no serious attempt made at putting our nation’s fiscal house in order without repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
"If we are to ‘win the future’ for America, this must begin with full repeal of ObamaCare."