America must reform its health care system to become more simple, accessible and affordable, while maintaining its high standard of quality.

To increase simplicity, America must encourage economic competition by allowing medical practitioners to operate openly in a free-market system. Allowing doctors to compete will raise quality standards to higher levels while driving costs down for consumers. Fewer mandates, frivolous lawsuits and less bureaucratic red tape will empower the relationship between individuals and primary-care physicians (PCP) in addition to spurring health care innovation.

To increase accessibility and affordability, America must, as Milton Friedman advises, “…convert the patient from a ward of the state to an independent, self-interested customer.” One step towards establishing this status is to reduce the already existing fraud and waste in the healthcare system, as Congressman Norwood did in a provision of the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act that restricts illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid. The GOP alternative to Obama’s health care bill (H.R. 3400) spells out this consumer-driven approach in more detail.

Any real health care reform must first emphasize the individual.

– Toby Tatum