As a physician deeply committed to improving the health of our nation, I have seen firsthand the challenges that plague our health care system. I wrote about these in Make America Healthy Again back in 2020.
Sadly, we are worse off now than we were then. The new presidential administration has an opportunity to enact meaningful reforms that prioritize patient care, personal responsibility and the strength of American innovation.
Here are five essential steps the administration should take to make America healthy again:
1. Promote Free Market Principles in Health Care
The strength of America lies in its free market, and this principle should continue to extend to health care. By reducing onerous regulations and fostering competition, we can lower costs and improve care. Further, price transparency is key to improving the quality of our private health care system.
Requiring hospitals to publish the cash price of their services would allow patients to make informed comparisons on services regardless of their network status with the insurance provider. Insurance companies should allow money spent on all medical care, whether in-network or out-of-network, count toward the deductible. If the patient chooses a less-costly provider below the average price, they should share in the cost savings generated for the insurance company.
No patient should go bankrupt for emergency medical procedures. What we continue to see are insurance companies playing their usual games in order to either squeeze patients or doctors by not covering the cost of services provided and then ‘surprise billing’ the patient because they didn’t pay their beneficiaries bill on emergency services. Emergency services should be paid by the insurance company regardless of network status. Patients should be focused on saving their life, not making sure they are heading to the right emergency department.
