President Barack Obama has outlined an ambitious goal of making sure that every American has quality affordable health care. He says that health reform cannot wait, and that it must be done this year. Few Americans would disagree with the President’s goals.
Quality of care cannot be achieved by restrictions on personal choice or competition among plans or providers. Quality is driven by innovation, investment, and the ability of medical scientists and clinicians to experiment with new and different medical treatments and procedures. Care that is of high quality and also affordable can never be achieved through the imposition of price controls. Nor can Americans enjoy cost control or efficiency in the delivery of care outside of the discipline of a free market.
We can achieve the goals that the President has set forth in health reform by ensuring that all Americans, without exception, have direct control over the flow of health care dollars in both the public and the private health care sectors of the economy,where they can directly secure value for those dollars and vote with their feet when they don’t get it. Continue reading…
