Now THIS is Real Healthcare Reform

The Republicans have an alternative Healthcare bill, which you wouldn't guess based on the news coverage it's received. This bill would be an alternative to the bill(s) Reid and Pelosi have tried to get through the House and the Senate. The Republican Healthcare bill does several necessary things to help lower the overall cost of healthcare.

• Number one: let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.
• Number two: allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.
• Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.
• Number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Republican bill would cost around $61 Billion (a fraction of the $1 Trillion needed for the Democratic bill) and, here's the kicker, DECREASE the deficit by $68 Billion!!

Now that's Healthcare reform I can get behind.

Hat Tip - Hot Air

Straight Talk About Real Healthcare Reform... From a Business Man

John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, has caught quite a bit of flack for his opposition to the Democratic Healthcare Reforms being positted in Congress. However, this successful business man has gone a step beyond opposing an obviously flawed policy. He's presented a viable alternative in his Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece.

When you read about the changes he wants to make, it makes a lot of sense. His focus is to have reforms that are "financially responsible" and that all individuals "the freedom to choose docotors and health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices." This is not something we would get under the current Democratically authored legislation being bandied about in the legislative branch.

I think some of the issue the "progressives" have with Mackey's arguement is his correct assertion that healthcare is not a right. Here is a short quote.

"Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America."

Read the rest of the article for a good dose of reality from a succesful business man. Politicians could learn a thing or two from his real world ideas.