Health Care Policy
As Americans we enjoy the highest quality medical care in the world combined with ever climbing costs and lack of availability in many areas.

We propose a patient-centered solution based on patient-owned Major Medical policies, tax-free Health Savings Accounts, public outreach health education, and health coverages which encourage disease prevention through lifestyle choices.

First a little background…
Our current health insurance system started during World War II when a wage freeze pushed employers to add benefits to attract the best workers. From there a patchwork system grew with many well-intentioned government interventions adding to the problem we face today. Medical care is so expensive because the market force of the consumers, the actual patients, making decisions about how much to spend and where are removed from the medical care system. It is time to help patients bring down the costs of our nation's health care.

Market-based reforms, NOT more government control, are needed desperately.

Our Proposal
The first part of our proposal is to allow all Americans to have Health Savings Accounts coupled with high deductible Major Medical Health insurance. Health Savings Accounts(HSA) allow the citizens of the 5th district and all other Congressional districts to put pre-tax money into a conservative investment account and use those funds to pay for routine medical care: doctor's visits, prescriptions, diagnostic tests etc. Any funds left at the end of the year would be retained in the account for future medical expenses. Any funds more than 5 times the deductible amount of the policy could be, at the account owner’s discretion, transferred to a self-directed Medical IRA account.

The amount of the deductible on the Major Medical health insurance policy would be directly tied to the amount deposited into the HSA. So if you deposited $2,000 into an HSA, your deductible is $2,000 for the year, if you deposited $5,000, your deductible is $5,000, etc. As your HSA grew, you could choose to raise your deductible even higher futher lowering your monthly premiums. As has been shown over and over again in our economy, if you give consumers an incentive to save money, they will shop around, compare prices, and spend the amount they think is the best deal. The growth of Wal-mart is one of the best examples that given similar quality consumers will choose to spend less.

By giving consumers ownership of their policies, we will free them from the dictates and decisions of employers rightfully attempting to keep their company health insurance costs under control. When a worker leaves an employer, their health insurance remains the same because the worker not the employer owns the policy. No need for burdensome government regulation and bureaucracy to maintain health insurance portability, no need to shop for a new doctor. Health care coverage will be truly portable when the patient owns the policy.

Move Health Care Tax Breaks to the Patient
Just as the ownership of the health care policy moves from employer to the patient, our proposal also moves the tax breaks to the health care consumer by allowing them to deposit their health care dollars tax-free into an account they own. The pool of patients for rating the high deductible Major Medical policies will be the consumer's Congressional district. This provides 435 pools of approximately 600,000 potential customers for insurers to rate which are already as evenly divided as we are able to accomplish through the political process. The people will also have a natural advocate in their Congressional Representative to ensure fair treatment.

Government Does Have a Role to Play
As another facet of our proposal we recognize there are areas where the government has an important role to play in promoting the general welfare of all our citizens: health education and public service advertising to encourage a change in behaviors which lead to adverse health effects. It is a vital role for government to play to continually educate the public through school programs, mass media advertising, and health outreach programs. There are real world health consequences to human behavior and those in government can do their part to educate our fellow Americans according to the latest medical studies what works and what doesn’t to maintain your health and your quality of life. People care about their health and given good information, most will make good decisions.

Another part of our proposal is to have our government make comparative information on medical care providers readily available to the consumer, so the patient spending the money can decide whether one provider's rate is worth paying over another's. Right now the consumer operates in a vacuum of results information for their chosen doctor. Outcomes are one part of the mosaic patients can use along with attributes the consumer can judge for themselves, (communication skills, cost, waiting times, etc.), to determine where and how much of their health care dollars are spent.

Besides the providing of information to the consumer and ensuring the safety of our health care delivery systems, it is time for the Federal government to get out of the health care business cutting out onerous levels of regulation and bureaucracy which only serve to drive up costs.

Prevention is Key
Lastly, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to our health. One necessary requirement of all health care insurance policies will be an incentive to pay for preventative testing according to the latest guidelines by the various specialty physician organizations. These tests will be figured into the cost of premiums to encourage the health care consumer to be proactive in taking charge of their health.

And the Patient is the Answer...
Overall our proposal is a simple, patient-focused solution: return the power to the patient for medical care decisions using a combination of high deductible policies owned by the consumer, pre-tax Health Savings Accounts, and pro-active outreach to provide patients with the information they need to promote their own health and control the currently out-of-control and ever rising costs of medical care one person at a time.