Ben Carson: Health Care

 

ObamaCare is a looming disaster.

Diagnosis: Patients and Their Doctors Have Lost Control

A lifetime in medicine taught me that the best health care decisions are made between patient and doctor. As decision-making moves further away from patients and providers, the medical outcomes become less effective.
Obamacare has upended the patient-doctor relationship, restricting our health care options and access to doctors and specialists. As a result, patients face exorbitant increases in premiums, deductibles and co-pays, less access to the doctors they trust and fewer health care plans to choose from.

Prognosis: Spiraling Costs, Fewer Doctors and Choices

Without immediate change Americans will face:
Fewer choices — Already, 5 million Americans have been kicked off the private health care plans they depended on, with 21 percent fewer health plan options than before Obamacare.

Fewer doctors — Even now, specialists essential to diagnosing and treating stroke (America’s 5th leading killer) are in severe shortage under the Obamacare insurance plans.

Broken promises under Medicare & Medicaid — Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries face a two-tieredhealth care system, as many doctors can no longer afford to participate; meanwhile, both programs are unsustainable.

Treatment Plan: Repeal Obamacare and Put “We the People” in Charge

Health Empowerment Accounts to put patients in charge, with more choices at lower cost:

• First-dollar coverage for out-of-pocket expenses and premiums to buy the insurance of your choice.
• Your Money. Your Account belongs to you, whether you change jobs or cross state lines.
• Transferable between family members, because each of us has different medical needs.

Save Medicare and Medicaid by putting beneficiaries in control:

• Give Medicare beneficiaries a fixed contribution to buy the health insurance they actually want and need.
• Give Medicare and Medicaid enrollees HEAs to cover first-dollar expenses and insurance premiums for coverage they get to choose
• Modernize Medicare to keep pace with medical advances by gradually increasing the eligibility age (by 2 months each year) until it reaches age 70.
• Treat Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries like the rest of us. Give Medicaid beneficiaries the same insurance coverage, doctors and choices that other Americans enjoy, with HEAs to provide first-dollar coverage, supplemented by a major medical insurance plan of the patient’s choice.
• Save Medicaid by providing fixed-dollar support to the states, which must use the funds for premium payments and HEAs for beneficiaries — not wasteful state bureaucracies.