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We Americans have long relied on institutions to organize and administer our health care. We have turned our money over to government, insurance companies, and our employers in the form of taxes, premiums, and lost wages, in the belief that they would do a good job of managing that money to deliver affordable quality health care services to our families. But they have made a mess of it.
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It’s Our Money.
It’s Our Health!
Today, we have a health care system that is bureaucratic, inefficient, inconvenient, of questionable quality, and far too expensive. Our trust has been misplaced.
It is time to take our money back so we can spend it on the services and products that will deliver the most value. The institutions we once trusted cannot be trusted to reform themselves. We need to build a system that delivers quality care, conveniently, in keeping with our personal values. No one else cares about the well-being of our own families as much as we do.
Put the Consumer in
the Driver’s Seat!
Consumers for Health Care Choices is a national grassroots organization of men and women who are dedicated to putting consumers in the driver’s seat of the health care system, as we are in all other aspects of our lives. We are small business owners, physicians, insurance brokers, patient advocates, economists, and just plain health care consumers who are united by the urgency of transforming health care -- NOW!
How Do We Go about It?
Change can come only through education based on sound principles and actionable ideas. This is not directed just at politicians, but at all Americans to create a new way of thinking about health care. It relies on consumer choice in a competitive market . as we have in all other areas of our lives. This means:
- The tax code should be neutral on how we finance our health care.
- We should be able to choose the coverage we prefer.
- We should own our own insurance coverage and take it with us when we change jobs.
- There should be a wide variety of service providers to choose from.
- We should know exactly what the prices are of the services we buy.
- Innovation and convenience should be encouraged and rewarded.
- Subsidies should be targeted only at people with special financial or medical needs.
Much of this Is Already Underway
- Insurers are offering Health Savings Accounts and other policies that put consumers in control of their health care choices and spending.
- New ways of delivering care are entering the market, including retail clinics, concierge medicine, specialty hospitals, and even medical tourism.
- Price transparency and information services are growing throughout the system.
The Revolution Has Begun!
But we aren’t out of the woods yet. Many politically influential people hate the whole idea of consumer choice. They believe a committee of experts should make all health care decisions, including exactly what services you should be allowed to have, when you should get them, and who should provide them. These “experts” don’t trust you to make decisions, even on your own health or how to spend your own money. They believe the problem in health care is not that there isn’t enough choice, but that there is too much choice. These people are well organized and very well financed.
This will be the biggest battle of the twenty-first century -- the struggle over who controls health care: you and 300 million other American consumers? Or a small privileged elite of academics and bureaucrats?
Which Side Are You On?
If you believe in freedom and personal empowerment, join us!
Your active support is critical to the success of this revolution in health care. Consumers for Health Care Choices is only as strong as we have members to support us. We often call on our members to speak at events, write letters to the editor, attend hearings and conferences, and provide us with information and intelligence on what is and is not working out in the real world.
We are no mere policy shop, but a national grassroots network of people who are dedicated to restoring freedom of choice and market dynamics to our health care system.
