Republican Congressman Tom Price, Chairman of the House Conservatives Caucus, has introduced a new proposal this month, HR3400. This bill, called The Empowering Patient’s First Act, grants all Americans quality health care with options chosen by the patient and the caring physician or healthcare provider.
Its main ideology supports:
- Flexibility in offered benefits by employers and protects employer-sponsored insurance
- Greater patient choice
- Coverage of pre-existing conditions
- Expansion of pooling groups for insurance purchase
- Physician reimbursement for maintaining healthy patient care including preventative care and wellness/prevention programs
- Medical liability reform to decrease defensive medicine, cutting out waste and duplication.
At a time when Britain’s National Health Service is being modified to rid 45% administrative costs, we should recognize the financial burden this would put on our system and nip these incurred costs at its inception.
Supporting this bill puts not only healthcare availability in the hands of the public, it puts the decision power for the healthcare where in squarely belongs—in the hands of the patient, not some autocrat who will make the decisions based on cost considerations.