From Power to Purpose, by Sam Brownback: on Health Care

Eliminate death by cancer in 10 years

Eliminating death by cancer is one of my favorite things to talk about. I had melanoma, and my father had colon cancer. We’re like most families in this country, where cancer is a familiar topic and a dreaded word.

In some of my speeches [I describe my] plan to end deaths by cancer in ten years. There are a lot of things we could give back to the world, but if the number-one fear is death from cancer, then giving them back the gift of life would be a wonderful gift. It would be a gift that only this country could give the world. We have everything needed to make this a priority.

Offset Third World drug costs by extending US patents

What if we allowed up to a 2-year patent extension on another medicine, as an incentive for these companies to fund research and development of treatments for the diseases of the developing world? It's a way for us to use the dynamics of the marketplace to come up with treatments for pernicious diseases in other parts of the world. We get research on ancient diseases affecting 100s of millions of people globally. They get short patent extensions. That sounds like a winning, market-based solution to a tough, global problem.

Supports competitive marketplace with price transparency

What happened with Lasik could be instructive for the rest of the health care system. First, Lasik has a market and price competition. It’s open pricing, so we see what costs are involved, up front. Second, we’re using our own money, so we shop for the best product at the best price.

The problem with the current health care system is that it’s not generally seen as using our own money, and we have no price transparency. We don’t know what we’re paying for. Frequently a third party pays the bill.

The patient needs more information, and we need more price transparency. I’ve cosponsored a bill requiring the disclosure of the amount Medicare reimburses on typical procedures [made] available over the Internet.

Supports Health Savings Accounts, not government control

That way you become more involved in the decision-making. You decide when it’s appropriate to seek treatment and how far you want to go with it.

The big danger at the moment, however, is that the other side is pushing hard for more government control over health care and a bigger government-funded system. The big push for the Democrats is nationalized health care on the order of the failed Clinton health care proposals of the 1990s. I don’t think they’ve lost the appetite for doing that now.

The market-engaging solution is the one that can actually work. Our way is to restore market mechanisms to the system, not simply yo have more and bigger government in health care.

Tragedy to make "right to die" legitimate

But there are incredible, beautiful things that can happen at the end of life, even amid the pain and difficulty. The transition of the soul from a physical home to a spiritual one is a sacred time. One person's trial can be an incredible testimony to those around him who survive, particularly family and close friends. I think it would be a terrible tragedy for the government to legitimate the act of taking one's own life.