CURE HEALTHCARE

I favor using the strengths of the free-enterprise system to preserve the best health-care research and delivery system in the world. We should use market forces to make it more affordable and its benefits available to more Americans.

• End Tax Code Bias - End the bias in the tax code against those who do not get their health insurance through their employer by adding a standard deduction for every American who buys health insurance, no matter how or where they buy it.
  
  
• Expand Health Savings Accounts - Expand Health Savings Accounts to allow people to save money for health care tax-free, and to take these accounts with them as they change jobs.  These portable accounts are affordable for individuals and small businesses, and they offer consumers greater ownership and control over their health care decisions. 
  
  
• Association Health Plans - Strengthen the buying power of America's small businesses by allowing formation of Association Health Plans (AHPs). 
  
  
• Allow for Group Healthcare Purchaisng - Allow associations, churches and organizations to form group buying pools for members that will reduce individual costs.
  
  
• Allow Nationwide Competition - Create national markets by permitting providers to practice nationwide and allowing families to purchase insurance across state lines. This will maximize their choices and increase competition, improvements that will reduce overhead, administrative and compensation costs from the system.
  
  
• Tort Reform - Enact medical tort reform. Frivolous lawsuits drive health care providers out of essential medical specialties and out of communities, force doctors to practice overly defensive medicine and raise the costs of health care for all Americans.
  
  
• VA Benefits - Give veterans the freedom to carry their VA benefits to health service providers that give them quality and timely care in the best locations.
  
  
• Technology - Create and deploy 21st century health information systems.
  
  
• Allow for Testing of Improved Methods - Allow states and communities to serve as laboratories for improving methods, including, but not limited to, alternate forms of access to care, risk-adjusted payments for Medicare patients, use of private insurance in Medicaid, alternate insurance policies and providers, and different licensing schemes for medical providers. Broadly deploying successful improved methods will benefit the entire system and reduce costs.

Toni opposes:

• Government Mandates - The imposition of health insurance purchasing mandates on those who chose not to buy or self-insure. This is America, after all.
  
  
• Socialized Medicine - Socialized, or single provider medicine. Markets work, government meddling does not. The health care delivery systems in countries that have socialized health care have deteriorated and, in some cases broken, even as the taxes to support them have climbed. Trying the same “plan” over and over and expecting a different outcome each time is unrealistic.