The Case for Healthcare Freedom

We have heard a lot about 'making America healthy again’ recently with the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr to be the head of the Health and Human Services Department of the US Government.

What is not receiving as much attention is a document created by Representative Chip Roy from Texas called “The Case for Healthcare Freedom”. From what I’ve seen of Rep. Roy, I believe he is genuine about wanting to reform healthcare. I just wonder about the inertia against him.

It’s a 47-page document that makes a case for changing American healthcare. A lot of the document goes into the problems of healthcare in America.

If you’ve experienced healthcare in America, you probably don’t need me to list out the problems.

Instead I’d like to go over the proposed solutions and give my thoughts.

Here are the proposed solutions:

1. Dramatically increase the amount you can contribute to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). HSAs are very good ways to save money on taxes.

2. Expand Direct Primary Care (DPC). DPC is a model where patients pay a monthly subscription fee to their doctor and can call anytime. No insurance required.

3. Healthcare Cost Sharing Organizations - These are groups of people who have decided to share funds and expenses for health care. Many of these are religious organizations. Sounds sort of like an insurance company. The difference is that Healthcare Sharing Organizations are not subject to all the governmental insurance regulations.

4. Expand catastrophic insurance plans. These are plans with very low monthly premiums and very high deductibles. They basically are for really bad events like cancer, severe accidents, heart attacks etc. All lesser medical expenses would be paid out of pocket.

5. Expand short-term, limited-duration plans - These plans are exempt from all federal regulations. The cost for these plans is much less (up to 66% less) than long-term plans.

6. Telemedicine - Do away with licensing requirements in each state. Right now a doctor has to seek a license to practice in each state. He or she cannot even do telemedicine from one state to another.

7. Reduce the drug approval process - Currently it can take up to $2.6 billion to bring a drug to market.

8. Further reduction in government regulations in healthcare

Are you sensing a trend here yet?

Parts of healthcare that are working and that people like (Cost Sharing Organizations, Direct Primary Care etc) are free of government interference.

I’m not trying to make this email a rant against government. I’m trying to say that government involvement in the healthcare sector stifles innovation.

I see it every day. Doctors tell me that they understand the science behind treatments such as hormone therapy, but they can’t prescribe it. They tell me that their insurance company doesn’t consider it the ‘standard of care’. Therefore the doctor would not be covered for liability if there was a problem.

The ‘standard of care’ is usually set by some government entity such as the CDC or FDA.

I completely understand that we don’t want to take risks with people’s lives. Yet what people don’t see are the lives that could have been saved but were not because we didn’t have a chance to think ‘outside of the box’.

Representative Roy’s plan seems to be a good first step. Hopefully the momentum of ‘MAHA’ continues to bring large advancements in the quality of our healthcare both in the United States and around the world.