Let's not just stop health-care reform, let's fight for a private alternative!

The Health Care debate is now on the political center stage.

Besides enduring the President’s long-winded answers during last night’s press conference, local Republicans have received two emails over the last 48 hours about this issue from the Montgomery County Republican Party and the Harris County Republican Party Chair. While the Montgomery email was concise and focused, and directed the reader to Congressmen and their phone numbers in order to call with objections, the HCRP email was a rambling 650+ word editorial ending with a request for money. Both carried the same message, though: Just say "no" to the current legislation. While I agree with my fellow Republicans that we should do all we can to stop this legislation, we can’t just end this debate by embracing the status quo.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what the HCRP advocates in its email. Chairman Woodfill summarized this position perfectly when he wrote the following: "By controlling the money, the government, not your insurance company, will be the ultimate decision maker." The problem with the status quo is that we already have ceded our liberty over health care decisions to a middleman (our insurer), which, in exchange for giving us a small co-pay and for relieving us of a lot of paperwork, controls our money and ultimate decision-making.

My argument is very simple: neither the insurance bureaucracy, nor a government bureaucracy should control your money or your health-care decisions--you should. The only way to make the system affordable, accessible, and private, is to put control of medical transactions into the hands of the patient and the provider, and reduce the role of any middleman--government or insurance--to subsidizing catastrophic risk through insurance or a safety net. Preferably the primary role of managing catastrophic risk would remain within the insurance industry so that premium income will still be invested in the private economy. Even Medicaid and Medicare could be folded into this system by changing the system of direct reimbursement to providers to a system of providing medical accounts to individuals and using tax dollars to pay premiums to private insurers for catastrophic coverage. Coupled with effective regulation to enlarge insurance pools, guarantee portability and prohibit denial of coverage, these changes would reduce costs over time without rationing.

Ideas for re-engineering the system into a patient-centered, market-oriented system have existed for decades. Rather than only say "no", our party should take the lead in advancing these alternative ideas. In fact, Michael Steele should call a national conference of Republican leaders and leaders of the health care and pharmaceutical industries now, to hammer-out an alternative to introduce on the floor of the House and the Senate and to use during next year's campaign. Taking this positive approach, coupled with stopping the current rush to further bureaucratize health care, should be the focus of our party at all levels.

At a stop sign, the driver eventually proceeds through the intersection; similarly, if all the GOP does is say "no", the Democrats eventually will succeed in passing their health-care legislation. We need to present a positive alternative in order to truly stop the Democratic agenda.

Finally, I must note that the HCRP has claimed a remarkable turnaround in fundraising since the reporting period ended on June 30th. Though we will not be able to confirm the source of these new funds for months, reliable sources confirm that much of the money was paid to the party by elected officials, including incumbent judges, in response to emphatic pleas for help from Richmond Avenue. Demanding tithes from candidates and elected officials is not fundraising, and ultimately deprives these people of resources they will need to fight their Democratic opponents. This approach must stop. However, now that the party has some money, it should honor its outstanding obligations to third parties that have been delinquent for too long. In short, the current team at Richmond Avenue should focus less on editorializing about a national issue and focus more on “healing thyself”.