We are on the cusp of a Renaissance in medicine leading to modern medical miracles we can only imagine today. The 21st century can be the golden age of biotechnology, turning death sentences into cures or manageable chronic diseases.
But we won’t get there with today’s backward policies that punish innovation through oppressive regulations, special interest favors, and price fixing. Our problems today are rooted not in too little but in too much government control.
We need new policies that encourage government and private players to work together, with government issuing appropriate regulations and consumer protections while encouraging private sector energy and creativity. And we need payment innovations that match our medical innovations.
These “Big Ideas” can usher in a new era in the health reform debate with a new vision and new solutions. (See links below for the full package of ideas.)
We can’t price control our way to better health. Innovation and medical progress are essential for breakthroughs that support longer, healthier lives. Without continued innovation, we would be sicker, die sooner, and have a lower quality of life.
The United States is the medicine chest for the world with the majority of all new drugs in the world developed by U.S. companies. We must not lose our world leadership in medical progress or defer to globalist dictates. Imposing European price controls on U.S. medicines will mean less access to fewer new drugs and cures—for Americans and rest of the world.
Most of the progress in modern medicine has come from new and more effective medicines, biologics, devices, and diagnostics.
We can create a truly competitive, innovative health sector that fosters this scientific progress, lowers costs through competition, and leads to a better quality of life through better technologies.
It’s time for citizens to demand more choices in that area of our lives which is most precious — our health — in a system that gives us a voice and a choice in prioritizing the care of health.
The future of health care in America depends on it, with policies that support technological advances as the most humane, effective, and even economical path forward.
21st century health policy should:
- set and enforce stronger “rules of the road” to support health care competition
- root out waste, inefficiency and abusive practices
- demand accountability to the patient and taxpayer
- free states to approve many more options of health plans
- empower the private sector to create new options for accessing care
- use sensible regulatory oversight
- subsidies that follow the person, similar to school choice for health care
- give patients more control over where and how health care dollars are spent while working with trusted agents, including employers.
This series of short pocket-card essays shows the way.
The following health policy experts participated in conversations about these Big Ideas:
- Joe Albanese – Paragon Health Institute
- Joseph Antos, Ph.D. – American Enterprise Institute
- Lanhee Chen, Ph.D. – Hoover Institution
- Anthony DiGiorgio, D.O., MHA – University of California, San Francisco
- Edmund Haislmaier – The Heritage Foundation
- Jackson Hammond – Paragon Health Institute
- Laura Hobbs – Washington Analysis
- Demetrios Kouzoukas – Paragon Health Institute
- Thomas Miller – American Enterprise Institute
- Brian Miller, M.D. – The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
- Bob Moffit, Ph.D. – The Heritage Foundation
- Casey Mulligan, Ph.D. – University of Chicago
- Tomas Philipson, Ph.D. – The University of Chicago Professor Emeritus
- Sally Pipes – Pacific Research Institute
- Nina Schaefer – The Heritage Foundation
- William Smith, Ph.D. – Pioneer Institute
- Grace-Marie Turner – Galen Institute at Donors
- John Walker – American Action Foum
- Joel White – Council for Affordable Health Coverage
- Wayne H. Winegarden, Ph.D. – Pacific Research Institute
- Joel Zinberg, M.D. – Paragon Health Institute
*Downloadable Versions
Big Ideas in printable one-pager format
Big Ideas in pocket-card format