President Barack Obama consistently accuses Americans who are skeptical about his health care plan of supporting the stats quo. Like much of what Obama says about health care, this simply isn’t true. Whole Foods co-founder and CEO has a must-read op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal outlining eight market friendly health care reforms including:
- Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).
- Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits.
- Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines.
- Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover.
- Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
- Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost.
- Enact Medicare reform.
- Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
These are all great ideas, many of which are incorporated into the Ryan–Coburn Patients Choice Act.
Read Mackey’s op-ed and read the Patients’ Choice Act and don’t let any Obamacare advocate tell you conservatives are not in favor of health care reform.