Leadership for America

Health care is a huge and growing sector of the U.S. economy. The United States spends $2.6 trillion on health care, roughly 17 percent of the gross domestic product. Additionally, government is responsible for approximately 50 cents out of every dollar spent on health care because of the huge and rapidly growing government health care programs: Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and state and public health care programs. The result of so much government control is that health care is one of the most highly regulated sectors of the American economy. Government financing means government control, and government control means less personal freedom.

In order to protect individuals and families, we must change laws and regulations at the federal and state level to enable individuals and families to own and control their own health care policies and to take them from job to job without tax or regulatory penalties. Currently, only nine percent of Americans directly purchase their own health insurance.

Individuals and families should be able to buy the health care plans they want at the price they wish to pay. Health plans and providers should be forced to compete on a level playing field in a free and open market where government will not be in the business of picking winners and losers. Finally, individuals and families should be free to choose health plans that accommodate their own ethics and morals. This means we must also transform Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP so that individuals and families have a broad choice of health plans and providers and that those providers are directly accountable to patients for their quality of care.