Free-Market Principles of Health Care Policy

1. Health care is a service not a right. Health care is best delivered by the market just like other important goods and services. Markets exist wherever consumers are allowed to seek the greatest value for their money and producers are allowed to seek profits by providing what consumers want.
2. Repeal existing regulations first. Benefit mandates, “guaranteed issue,” and “community rating” are among the regulations that unnecessarily increase health care spending.
3. Reduce reliance on third party payers. Over-reliance on third-party payers is at the root of many health care problems. Government policies that reward the reliance on third parties to pay for routine medical expenses encourage Americans to overuse health care services and reduce the rewards to providers who would otherwise compete on price.
4. Help only those who need help. Universal coverage is not the appropriate goal of health care reform. Despite saturation media coverage of the “crisis” of the rising number of people without health insurance, the proportion of Americans who lack health coverage has increased little over the past decade.
5. Single payer is not the answer. Single-payer health systems provide inferior care and fail to provide universal access. Such programs cause long delays in the provision of care, low rates of investment and innovation, and inferior health outcomes.
6. Encourage entrepreneurship. Specialty hospitals, retail clinics, and other innovations can lower costs and improve access to quality health care services.
7. Expand Health Savings Accounts. Health Savings Accounts are a key part of empowering consumers and restoring market discipline to health care providers.
8. Expand access to prescription drugs. Prescription drugs are extending life, reducing suffering, and making surgery less necessary, yet they are heavily regulated and often the target of price controls and rationing.
9. Reduce malpractice litigation expenses. Malpractice insurance, litigation and the practice of defensive medicine and responsible for part of the unnecessary high cost of health care in the U.S.
10. Encourage long-term care insurance. Middle and upper-income families should privately insure for their long-term care needs.