How to Fix American Healthcare: Kick Out Washington

There are six important reasons to kick Washington OUT of U.S. healthcare. Simply put, healthcare is not in their wheelhouse. The solution to our failing healthcare system is StatesCare, not more-of-the-same Washington domination, called single payer or Medicare-for-All.

Reason #1: Track record

The first and most obvious reason to kick Washington out is its track record. For more than fifty years, the federal government has been fixing healthcare, and look what their "fixes" have produced: needed medical care is both unaffordable and unavailable, especially when we need it.
Imagine a football team that has had the same coach for fifty seasons and lost every game. Would you renew that coach's contract for next season?

Reason #2: Cost

In 2009, President Obama said spending on U.S. healthcare was "unsustainable," and he was correct. In 2010, the year the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed, the U.S. spent $2.5 trillion, 16 percent of GDP, on healthcare. The ACA was implemented starting in 2014 at a cost of $1.76 trillion. By 2018, we were spending $3.6 trillion on healthcare, 19 percent of GDP.
Washington's latest self-proclaimed cost-cutting effort, the ACA, dramatically increased spending on healthcare. What was unsustainable in 2010 has become even less sustainable due to Obama's namesake legislation. Americans need to find some way to reduce spending on healthcare that doesn't depend on Washington.

Reason #3: Cost/Benefit

When an American considers purchasing anything, a product such as a sweater or a service like dry cleaning the sweater, the buyer compares money spent with benefit received. We know how much we are spending on healthcare. Are we getting an appropriate benefit? The answer is an emphatic no!
Nationally, we spent $3.6 trillion on healthcare in 2018, approximately twice what other developed nations spend. Yet wait times to see a physician increased to a point where people die waiting in line for medically possible, life-saving care that isn't available in time. Such "death-by-queueing" has been reported in Maryland, Illinois, and the Veterans Administration health system.
In 2018, the average American family expended $28,166 on healthcare costs, of which $23, 462 (83 percent) was paid to insurance companies. As median gross family income in 2018 was $63,179, a healthy family of four wasted 45 percent of their total compensation. (Imagine if they could have put all that money in to a family HSA.)
With Washington in charge of healthcare, Americans are spending more and getting less-a truly terrible cost/benefit ratio.

Reason #4: Legal

The original 1965 Medicaid law created "jointly funded, state administered" programs. Note the phrase state administered. Over five decades, the federal government has gradually taken control of every aspect of all Medicaid programs from eligibility and verification to mandated benefits and payment schedules.
In fact, the Medicaid law also explicitly legislates local, i.e., state, control of each program. Section 1801 of the Medicaid law is titled, "Prohibition against any federal interference."
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