Ron Paul’s Health Ideas

On health care, Paul was quoted as saying: “Health care should not be left up to HMOs, big drug companies and government bureaucrats. It is time to take back our health care. Congressman Paul is a medical doctor by profession. That alone should make him worth listening to because he has real world experience with the health care process. On a side note, his nickname in congress is Dr. No, because he votes against so many governmental programs. Paul starts by proposing to make all medical expenses tax deductible by doing away with the current 7.5 percent IRS deduction. Simply put that means that you wouldn’t have to get to some IRS number to deduct your expenses, they would be immediately and totally cut from your taxes. Next, Paul proposes eliminating federal regulations that discourage small businesses from providing coverage. He then moves onto the supply side of the problem by proposing to give doctors the right to collectively negotiate with insurance companies and drive down the cost of medical care.Excellent! Paul goes on to propose changing the rules to make every American eligible for a Health Savings Account, or HSA, and removing the requirement that individuals must obtain a high-deductible insurance policy before opening an HSA. That means that we could pay ourselves (a tax deductible amount), put it into an account that we have control of and immediate access to and not have the insurance execs carving out their percentage from our money. Paul also proposes reforming licensure requirements so that pharmacists and nurses can perform some basic medical functions to increase access to care and lower costs. Excellent again! He also proposes reforms to end the lawsuits that cost us so much money, because, as with everything else, the doctors don’t pay for their malpractice insurance, we do. They just tack it onto the cost of an office visit and we end up paying the lawyers a cut every time we go to the doctor! Ron Paul has already introduced legislation on all these issues, -so we know he is for real. He has been working as a Congressman for years to provide real workable solutions to the crisis. Sadly, they have largely failed because the majority of our “representatives” in Washington, D.C., need the bucks from the drug and insurance lobbies to maintain their seats in Congress. So, no reform. Paul has been quoted as saying: “Our free market health care system that was once the envy of the world has become a federally-managed disaster.” And: “The federal government decided long ago that it knew how to manage your health care better than you and replaced personal responsibility and accountability with a system that puts corporate interests first.” He also said: “Few people realize that Congress forced Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) on us. HMOs rose to prominence through federal legislation, incentives, and coercion. Now, the Food and Drug Administration’s bias toward large pharmaceutical companies enlarges their power, limits treatment options and drives consumers to seek Canadian medicines.” Taken from Mountain Mail, written by Rick Coddington, SOCORRO, New Mexico