While 77% of Americans say the quality of their own health care is excellent or good, access to and rising costs of health care remain fundamental problems with our health care system.
As conservatives we believe a better functioning, more competitive, and transparent marketplace would cover more people and deliver the higher-value care we seek. Judging by his policy proposals, it appears that President Barack Obama has a different vision. Yesterday, the the Health Policy Consensus Group, a coalition of experts from market-oriented think tanks (including the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Galen Institute, The Heritage Foundation, the Independence Institute, the Institute for Policy Innovation, the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, the National Center for Policy Analysis, and the Pacific Research Institute) released a joint Statement on Health Reform identifying six flawed prescriptions for radical change should not be accepted as part of any serious and sustainable health reform proposal:
- A new government health insurance plan.
- An employer “play-or-pay” mandate.
- A uniform, government-defined package of benefits.
- A mandate that individuals must purchase insurance.
- A National Health Insurance Exchange extending federal regulatory powers over private insurance.
- Federal interference in the practice of medicine through a federal health board, comparative effectiveness review, and other government intrusions into medical decision-making.
For For an extended critique of each of these policy proposals, read the full Health Policy Consensus Group statement here.
There was never a problem with accessible health care. The problem is people's unwillingness to take responsibility to make their own decisions and cover their own costs when it comes to their own health. Why should anybody be responsible to health care costs but the person getting health care attention?
If we go to a government-sponsored national health insurance plan, wouldn't it effect an individual's right to sue for medical malpractice as there would be some form of immunity?
You people have got to be kidding or living in a fantasy land! Even with insurance one drug my sister needed would have cost $600 per month and she is a teacher. Health care should be a right-not a privilege. It is barbaric to think that because you make less money that you should not be able to see the doctor, or get medicine or surgery! There is most definately a problem with accessibility when insurance for a family of four can easily exceed $700 a month; this being for insurance that does not really cover what may be needed.