By VICTORIA SPARTZ
State Senator
Our nation lost a great American on Saturday due to his years-long battle with cancer. Former U.S. Senator Coburn was a strong and principled conservative fighter for our values of limited government and individual freedoms. I had the honor of working with him on several issues and engaged him in our healthcare reform last fall.
Senator Coburn was a huge believer in consumer choice and competition. Therefore, in his memory and in light of recent healthcare challenges, I would like to talk briefly about healthcare reform. We’ve made some progress in Indiana this legislative session by addressing some price transparency and consumer protection issues, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us.
Why is our healthcare spending out of control?
We know that our healthcare spending is unsustainable, and our quality is going in the wrong direction too, but why? The answer is actually pretty simple – absence of market forces.
There are generally two main economic concepts to control prices, supply and demand: One – through free markets and voluntary exchange between sellers and buyers, and another one – through government control, planning and rationing. Both of these systems control prices, but only one system can deliver value – free markets.
What is happening in our healthcare?
We have a huge underlying problem: For most of health care transactions there is no voluntary exchange between buyers and sellers. Most buying and selling decisions are made by intermediaries – insurers, employers, special interest groups and governmental entities, which are mainly concerned with their bottom line, sacrificing value and quality, forcing mandatory expenditures, and driving health care spending.
What is our solution?
Unless we want Medicaid for all, which will be fatal to the quality of our healthcare system, we need to engage market forces. The consumer has to be a direct buyer and payer for health care needs, including insurance, pharmaceuticals, doctors and hospitals. Every stakeholder would have to compete for the consumer by delivering value.
All the government needs to provide is the proper legal framework to enforce contracts and transparency, and arrangements for the current high-risk pools. There are some good steps President Trump has been taking through executive orders, and I worked directly with the people who wrote his polices. These are great polices, but we cannot legislate through the executive branch. Congress must step up!
Free enterprise or government control?
Our healthcare choice is not just about healthcare, but about us being a “free enterprise” or “government control” country. It’s a very important choice for our nation! We’ve been experiencing recently what rationing and government control feels like. Do we really want it?
I hope you can support me in the fight for our free republic! We must win this war!