Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21) announced on Wednesday the publication of “The Case for Healthcare Freedom” — a painstakingly researched, 47-page report on America’s health crisis and how to address it.
“The Case for Healthcare Freedom lays out a detailed roadmap for how Congressional Republicans can help President Trump deliver on the promise to address America’s health crisis,” Rep. Roy said of the report. “The problem isn’t just health insurance, or Big Pharma, or food additives that are making us unhealthy; it’s the fact that politicians, bureaucrats and corporations are all benefitting from a broken, cronyistic system that lets them put profits over patients with impunity.
“Right now, Congress has a tremendous opportunity to put American healthcare back on track by embracing the empowerment of patients and doctors through the promotion of expansive health savings accounts in the budget reconciliation process, and we need to take full advantage. Giving the same actors more power and money won’t work; if we want to Make America Healthy Again, the answer is healthcare freedom. If we want to control our budgets and healthcare spending, the answer is healthcare freedom.”
Selected findings in the report:
- In 2024, families and their employers paid close to an average of $25,000 annually (nearly a company car) for health insurance, despite the false promise of Obamacare to lower premiums by $2,500 a year. This cost is an all-time high and almost a 100% increase since 2010[.]
- Obamacare has made healthcare so expensive that it now subsidizes households earning up to $600,000 per year for their health insurance.
- While chronic food illness kills up to 678,000 Americans per year, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will likely pay over $250 billion on junk food for the next 10 years.
- Novo Nordisk spent at least $25.8 million over the past decade on U.S. medical professionals to promote two of its obesity drugs, Wegovy and Saxenda.
- In 2024, four of the top five American industries by revenue were healthcare-related (#1 hospitals, #2 drug, cosmetic, and toiletry wholesaling, #3 health insurance, and #5 pharmaceutical wholesaling).
- 47% of hospital cash prices are lower than the insurer-negotiated price that people pay hundreds of dollars a month for the privilege of having.
- U.S. healthcare spending reached $4.9 trillion in 2023. As a share of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), health spending accounted for 17.6%, and costs are growing around 1% faster than the annual GDP. If conservatives care about a strong national defense and low taxes, these trends have to be reversed.
- Multiple insurance companies, including UnitedHealth, Anthem/Elevance, and Humana “earn” a majority of their revenue from taxpayers.
- We do not have a free market in the healthcare system. The government controls more than 80% of health spending.
- The Left’s solution to fix our healthcare system is spending even more money and giving the government even further control over the healthcare system.“Medicare for All” would cost an additional $33 trillion over 10 years, and it would leave 70% of Americans financially worse off.
Selected quotes:
- Our current healthcare system is neither free nor competitive. It is government-regulated, government-funded, Big Insurance-managed “care” resulting in a broken system on the brink of fully government-run healthcare. Half measures by Republicans will not save us from this disaster.
- The United States spends more on health care than any other developed country, and yet America has the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest rate of people with multiple chronic diseases, and an obesity rate that is one of the highest among other wealthy countries.
- America is the center of medical innovation in the world. It is not something we should take for granted. … This role as a world leader does not mean that we need a drug for everything. Especially things that could be mitigated by eating a balanced diet, sleeping more, and exercising.
- We do not have a “free market” healthcare system, we have textbook crony capitalism, and all of it is to the detriment of the patient and providers. Patients and healthcare providers are treated as pawns for the insurance companies and hospitals in the healthcare system.
- Our system is run by government and insurance bureaucrats and is “private” in name only. Healthcare special interests spend $750 million annually lobbying to keep this racket going.
- The healthcare system is actively hostile to innovation. The regulations and restrictions that have been placed on the healthcare system claiming to “protect patients” have only led to the opposite.
- Healthcare freedom does not mean “you are on your own.” In fact, it means the exact opposite. It means you are free to make your own health decisions and use your money to pay whoever you want to take care of your health issues
