Job Creators Network Foundation & Patient Advocacy Groups Unveil “Healthcare for You” Reform Framework

Washington, DC (October 17, 2019) – Today, Job Creators Network Foundation (JCNF) and patient advocacy groups unveiled “Healthcare for You,” a framework for healthcare reform that is an alternative to “Medicare for All.” Over the past few months, JCNF conducted extensive market research and worked with patients, doctors, and small business owners to create a personalized healthcare framework.

JCNF President Elaine Parker released the following statement:

“With Obamacare clearly failing and the Democrats’ ‘Medicare for All’ scheme even worse, the American people want and deserve a personalized healthcare framework that does the following: Restores, repairs, and improves the doctor-patient relationship; gets lobbyists, DC bureaucrats and politicians out of healthcare decisions; and increases choice to lower prices. Unlike Obamacare, which was a top-down approach, we’ve done the opposite, drawing on the input of more than 25,000 patients, doctors, and healthcare professionals. The result is a framework supported by the American people and empowering those serving on the front lines of medicine. We’re going to push hard for this plan because liberal activists are already filling the vacuum on healthcare policy. Unless we take action, we’re going to end up with ‘Medicare for All,’ which will destroy the patient-doctor relationship and eliminate private health insurance for 200 million Americans.”

To keep up to date with JCNF’s plan, please visit HealthcareForYou.com.

The seven elements of the “Healthcare for You” framework are:

Removing barriers that separate doctors and patients.

o    We must remove red tape that separates doctors and patients.  For instance, relax Obamacare’s electronic health record (EHR) regulations that have required doctors to spend about half of their time on paperwork and which have put a literal and figurative screen between them and patients.

o    Regulations are driving physicians out of private practice; we need more doctors, not fewer. 53 percent of doctors are now payroll physicians employed by hospitals.

o    The doctor-patient relationship is intimate and personal; no one knows better what kind of treatment a patient needs than that patient’s doctor.

Lowering insurance premiums through increased choice and price transparency.

o   In every industry where we have more choice and price transparency, we see lower prices and more innovation; healthcare is not an exception to this economic fact.

o   End inefficient federal rules on private insurance plans.

o   Let states expand and regulate their private markets to offer more and better options.

o   Let patients purchase insurance across state lines – as people do with auto or life insurance – to maximize their options for plans that best suit them or their families.

Lowering drug prices.

o   Return savings back to the patients instead of middlemen; $250 billion per year goes to middlemen.

o   Nearly all the recent increases in drug list prices can be chalked up to rising rebates.

o   Repeal the legislation that exempts these middlemen from penalty for violating federal anti-kickback law.

o   The savings of a quarter-trillion dollars per year will also significantly lower the cost of prescription drugs and medical devices patients need.

Creating Personal Health Management Accounts to give patients more control over their healthcare dollars.

o    Patients can pay insurance premiums with pre-tax dollars to purchase insurance that’s independent from their jobs and will remain regardless of employment status.

o    Employers can opt to contribute directly to these accounts, getting them out of the insurance business which puts healthcare decisions in the hands of their employees, not employers and their third-party administrators.

o    This extends the same tax benefits enjoyed by employers to all Americans.

o    The contribution limits and restrictions on these accounts are relaxed.

o    Along with the extension of tax-free benefits of these accounts, the ability of employers to fund these would significantly increase healthcare portability, eliminating health insurance job lock that currently exists.

Expanding Direct Medical Care to increase choices and lower costs.

o    Putting patients back in charge of their healthcare spending through expanded tax-free accounts will vastly increase direct medical care, which cuts out middlemen to lower costs and gives patients more choice.

o    For family care needs direct medical care is known as direct primary care, which offers families all their primary medical care needs for one low monthly membership fee – no insurance or middlemen necessary. Patients can get access to their regular doctors at any time through call, text, or telemedicine.

o    For other procedures – at surgery centers, for instance – direct medical care means transparent cash prices, which will allow patients to price shop, lowering prices.

o    Cash prices are often cheaper than what insurers can offer. According to Vanderbilt economist Larry Van Horn, cash healthcare prices are 40 percent lower than insurers’ negotiated rates.

o    Whether it’s a monthly membership fee for Direct Primary Care, posted pricing at a surgical center or fee for service from a specialist, patients will be able to get healthcare at a lower price and have more choice.

Protecting against pre-existing conditions.

o   Patients will be covered even if they have a pre-existing condition.

o   Allow employees to use Personal Health Management Accounts to buy their own health insurance and owning it prevents any lapse in coverage when changing jobs.  This helps address some of the problems of pre-existing conditions.

o   Allow states to choose the risk pool model that works for them and most importantly, protects patients.

Reforming broken medical malpractice system to remove costs from the system.

o   Physicians often order every conceivable test (defensive medicine) to protect themselves against a possible lawsuit.

o   This adds tens of billions of dollars of unnecessary medical spending each year.

o   Reforming the law to control these costs will result in lower costs for patients.