"The Case For Healthcare Freedom:" The Cliffnotes

Haven’t had a chance to read “The Case for Healthcare Freedom,” a nearly 50 page report on America’s healthcare crisis and how to fix it by Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21)?  We have - here’s the CliffNotes version.

“Our current healthcare system is neither free nor competitive. It is government-regulated, government-funded, Big Insurance-managed “care” resulting in a broken system on the brink of fully government-run healthcare.“  This couldn't be more true.  

• Americans are unhealthier than they’ve ever been, despite spending 3x more per capita on healthcare than other developed countries.  This report looks to unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, especially our ultra-processed American diet, as the primary cause of our downward spiral into being the most chronically ill country on the planet.  
• But don’t worry, there’s a solution for being so sick - drugs!  Rather than address the lifestyle factors that are causing the majority of chronic illness, doctors, hospitals, and even patients are incentivized to take a pill that only treats the symptoms rather than the cause.  And, by the way, you’ll need that drug for the rest of your life.  
• It’s costing you:  In 2024, families and their employers paid close to $25,000 per year for health insurance.  This isn’t free money - it’s income that you could be taking home.
• And that’s not even taking into account the cost of actually being ill - missed time at work, time and money spent getting to doctors’ appointments, not to mention missing out on all life has to offer.
• Bloated administration is adding up:  Since the 1970’s, the number of healthcare administrators has increased by 1000%.  All of these people want a paycheck, and they provide zero direct care, and little value, to patients.
• 30% of current healthcare spending has no benefit at all or is harmful.  Cutting red tape and incentives for unnecessary testing/treatment will allow doctors to doctor more effectively and efficiently.  
• Mergers and vertical integration in the healthcare system is costing patients.  Not only do hospital mergers increase prices by 65%, it seems just a little shady that your insurance company can own your hospital, your pharmacy, and your doctor.  How can a patient possibly compete against a team like that?
• Obamacare regulations to require insurance companies to pay out 80-85% of their revenue in claims backfired - instead of encouraging companies to decrease costs, it incentivized them to raise premiums.  The only way to increase their profits was to make the whole pie bigger and more expensive.

The solution is simple:  

1:  Provide education, access, and incentives to encourage healthy behaviors - actually make people healthier.  On the flip side, limit the propaganda of pharmaceutical advertising and corrupt government regulators. 

2:  Create a free market healthcare system focusing on high value care, healthy competition between providers, health insurance that is actually insurance and other cost sharing methods, and expand access to tax-advantaged health savings accounts.

3:  Increase patient choice and price-competition by limiting vertical integration and mergers turned monopolies within the healthcare system.