Real Solutions for American Healthcare - Brief Overview

America must move beyond partisan rhetoric and thirty-second sound bites. We must find solutions for the real problems faced by modern medicine. If an idea sounds too good to be true, it is. If you are promised something for nothing, rest assured your freedom is slipping through your fingers.

Addressing the Fundamental Problems

When providing critical care, physicians always begin with the ABC's of emergency medicine—Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. Though other interventions are necessary, the patient must be stabilized first. The same is true for our ailing healthcare system.

Three fundamental reforms are needed to stabilize American healthcare. If any one of them is neglected, patient-centered healthcare will not survive. We must correct the inefficiencies or our present system, not simply spend more money on a system destined to fail.

1. Insurance Reform
2. Tax Reform
3. Tort Reform

Taken together these reforms will:

• Pay for themselves. In fact, these reforms may actually decrease federal spending.
• Make health insurance affordable for every American.
• Place the patient at the center of American healthcare.
• Reduce the cost of healthcare without restricting patient care.
• Provide transportability. Patients may keep their health insurance when changing jobs.
• Encourage transparency. Patients and physicians can know the cost of care.

Secondary Reforms

Once the above reforms stabilize American healthcare, several secondary measures can build on this foundation:

• Standardized electronic medical record
• Preventative medicine initiatives
• Smoking cessation incentives
• Weight loss incentives
• "Ask about generics" campaign
• Encourage end of life discussion between patients, families, and physicians. However, these conversations must remain strictly optional, completely confidential, and entirely removed from government influence.