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Herman Cain on Health CareRepublican Businessman & Talk-Show Host; 2011 GOP frontrunner |
CAIN: I am supposed to have a minute to disagree with Gingrich, but I don't. So I would like to instead to add a historical perspective. Medicare started in 1965 and our government told us it would cost $6 billion to rollout, and we were told that by 1990 it would cost $12 billion. But in 1990, it actually cost $109 billion. IT WAS A 900% MISS. How many businesses can survive missing a target like this. I believe as Speaker Gingrich believes that we can't reshuffle Medicare or Medicaid, we must RESTRUCTURE. A guiding principle in the Ryan Plan that I love is that if you want to solve a problem, you must go to the source closest to the problem. It is not Washington DC; it is the states; it is the patients.
GINGRICH: I think that the mess of the health system is an everything problem. It is federal, state, doctor, patient problem. The person receiving services isn't paying so they don't value it. The person writing the checks thinks the doctor is a crook.
GINGRICH: We need genuine block grants so states can decide how best they should handle matters.
CAIN: I absolutely agree with block granting to states. The states know better how to use their resources to provide the greatest amount of help to their citizens. Medicaid has gotten states hooked on it like crack. We have to break the crack habit with block grants. The states over time will have more flexibility. We should not cut them off cold turkey, but we need to start to end the dependency of states on Washington bureaucracy. We need to end the mandates to the states and let the states decide. I believe in going from an entitlement society to an empowerment society. Help people to help themselves. No entitlement programs: teach people to fish, not give them fish. I would support a voucher system but not if a voucher would pay all the costs. People need skin in the game, otherwise they will ask how much more the government will give them.
CAIN: The reason I said that I would be dead under Obamacare is because my cancer was detected in March of 2006. All the way to the end of 2006, I was able to get the necessary CAT scan tests, get a second opinion, get chemotherapy, get surgery, recuperate from surgery, get more chemotherapy, all in a span of nine months. If we had been under Obamacare and a bureaucrat was trying to tell me when I could get that CAT scan that would have delayed by treatment. My surgeons and doctors have told me that because I was able get the treatment as fast as I could, based upon my timetable and not the government's timetable; that's what saved my life, because I only had a 30% chance of survival. This is one of the reasons I believe a lot of people are objecting to Obamacare, because we need get bureaucrats out of the business of trying to micromanage health care in this nation.
CAIN: First, repeal Obamacare in its entirety. Secondly, pass market-driven, patient-centered reforms such as deductibility of health insurance premiums regardless of who pays for it. Secondly, the other thing that we can do in order to help bring down the costs is pass loser-pay laws. Doctors will tell you that one of their biggest expenses is medical liability insurance because of frivolous lawsuits. Secondly, restructure Medicare, another big cost that's passed on to us as consumers related to all the bureaucracy associated with that. Another market-driven idea, allow association health plans. When I ran the National Restaurant Association, we wanted to design a system for health insurance that was going to be customized for our industry. We could not do that. We need to be allowed to do that, and so should other organizations and other associations.
A: I would promote a healthcare plan that would focus on controlling costs, and it would certainly allow individuals to choose Doctors. A the private sector would be key in a Herman Cain healthcare plan. Governmental regulation is not the way.
The majority of Americans agree: it's time to repeal and replace Obamacare with patient-centered, free market reforms. It's time to institute legitimate tort reforms that let doctors practice medicine without fear of frivolous lawsuits. Loser pay laws would be a great start!