Our Plan
Patient-Centered Healthcare Reform
Any third party payer system, whether insurance companies or a government-run plan, strips patients and physicians of both autonomy and responsibility. This creates one of the most difficult challenges facing healthcare reform. How do we design a system that protects individuals from devastating medical expenses if they suffer a serious illness or injury, but still encourages the wise use of resources?
The reforms proposed by Physicians for Reform do not undercut any system currently in place. In fact, because these reforms control the skyrocketing cost of healthcare they serve to strengthen both the employer-based and the individual insurance markets. By moving Medicare and Medicaid towards fiscal solvency, our reforms also stabalize these programs. However, as opposed to a system that transfers more power to Washington, these reforms shift power and responsibility toward patients and physicians.
The Foundation For Reform
Calls to repeal the Affordable Care Act must also be backed by a plan to improve our broken healthcare system. The 2,700 page Affordable Care Act and its bloated set of regulations that now exeed 30x the law itself must be repealed, but the way forward must be carefully chosen.
Any attempt to fix a system as massive and intricate as the United States' healthcare system must:
- Identify the underlying problems, not just the symptoms.
- Develop interventions that specifically address each problem found.
Making multiple, simultaneous, non-focused changes only adds to the dysfunction. The rejection of this basic problem-solving strategy represents the primary failure of the sweeping Affordable Care Act and explains the chaos we are currently experiencing.
Physicians For Reform proposes the process of replacing to the Affordable Care Act be guided by the following principles:
FIVE GUIDING PRINCIPLES |
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In keeping with these principles, Physicians For Reform lays out nine primary reforms, followed by a series of eight secondary reforms.