Fix Health Care Policy

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) Outlines a New Paradigm for Health Care Reform

Yesterday, Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI) shared his outlook for repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Ryan pointed out that rising health care costs not only make insurance unaffordable for many Americans; they are also a main driver of growing federal deficits. As medical inflation pushes the cost of insurance and medical goods and services sky high, the cost to taxpayers of Medicare, Medicaid, and the new open-ended entitlements created in Obamacare goes up as well.

Adequately addressing rising costs will require pinpointing the root causes of medical inflation. Ryan defined these as over-utilization, under-payments, and inefficiency stemming from the detachment of consumers from the costs of their health decisions in a third-party system. The irony, as Ryan put it, is that “the system that shields us from the cost of services has actually left us paying more.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: consumer-driven care, health reform, Rep. Paul Ryan, repeal Obamacare, replace, rising costs