It was reality TV all day in the Health Care debate, except no one was voted off the panel. The day would have been more exciting if Donald Trump would have bluntly stated to Nancy Pelosi, “You’re Fired.” In fact, that would have been beautiful. (more…)
Health Care
Thoughts on Health Care and the “Summit”
Thursday, February 25th, 2010Health Care
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
Affordable health care is achievable, but not with the current health care law.
Liberty provides people the options to choose how to live their lives. I do not have the responsibility to dictate for other people the choices they make in their lives. In the past few months, a small group in the federal government decided that because 10% of the country does not have health care insurance (some of them by their choice), 100% of Americans must change their health insurance. The same Democrat party that talks on and on about a “woman’s right to choose” what to do with her body just told every man and woman in America when, where, and how they can get health care. Where did all their passion for choice go?
My daughters will not have the same health care options I have had because of a few members of the Washington elite. What will that mean for them? In the days to come we will never know what medical advances were not discovered because private research dollars were suspended. Which hospital will close in days to come because it cannot afford to stay open privately? Which great future doctor will not go into medicine because he or she does not want to be a government employee?
If anyone honestly believes that the problems with health care in America can be resolved by more federal government control, they are sadly mistaken. Our national debate over health care should really be a debate in each state. Nowhere in the Constitution does it give the right or responsibility to the federal government to manage health care. There are many states, including Oklahoma, that have made strides in creating affordable health insurance. Oklahoma should also lead the way in tort reform, protecting patients and doctors.
The federal government’s role should be to remove the barriers that impede ingenuity by doing such things as increasing portability of insurance from group plans to individual plans and expanding the options for risk pools for individuals and small businesses. The federal government is working to limit the number and role of insurance companies when we should be removing the barriers so that we have more companies and more competition. There are insurance issues that need to be addressed, but the new health care law only compounds the problems and the costs instead of solving the problems.
When individuals own their own insurance and they watch prices and manage their own money, costs go down. We should encourage individuals to start their own health savings accounts (HSA). These allow people to buy catastrophic insurance and to put their money into a HSA so they can spend it for health care as they wish.
In Congress I will aggressively work to stop the funding to implement the new health care law. Then, I will work with a coalition of conservative House members to pass a free market based health care reform that will be consistent with our national values and Constitutional authority. The health care law was bad medicine from the beginning. It must be stopped and replaced.
