5 Steps to Lower Health Care Costs

Families need real relief from high health-care costs. They are tired of Washington’s habit of pouring more Obamacare tax dollars into a system that keeps getting more expensive. There is a better way. A new five-point platform from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity shows how we can make care more affordable without writing bigger checks to Big Insurance.

Their plan is simple and targeted. It focuses on giving patients more control, expanding choices, and opening the system to the kind of competition that lowers prices. That is the right approach. When patients control more of their own health-care dollars, and when providers compete on price and service, families win.

Here are five steps Congress should take to lower health-care costs:

1. Let health-care dollars follow the patient. Expanding Health Savings Accounts lets employers and taxpayers put more money directly in the hands of patients.

2. Let families decide how to spend their health-care money. That includes short-term plans, direct primary care, physician-owned practices, and other cost-saving options Washington has sidelined for years.

3. Expand the supply of medical services. Repealing the federal ban on physician-owned hospitals, fixing anti-competitive rules, and undoing state certificate-of-need laws will increase access and drive down prices.

4. Require clear price transparency. If providers will not post their prices, patients should not be stuck with the bill. Sunlight works.

5. Let patients pay cash. Families should be able to pay cash for prescriptions, doctor visits, and other services and have those payments count toward deductibles and out-of-pocket caps.

   
   

This is a practical blueprint for lowering costs without expanding Obamacare. Washington does not need to shovel more taxpayer money into a broken system. It needs to open the system to competition, choice, and patient-driven reform. That is how we make care more affordable for everyone.