Saturday, July 7, 2012

Libertarian Johnson: Bring in Free-Market Healthcare Reforms

Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson tells Newsmax he favors abolishing Obamacare and instead adopting a reform program that would greatly expand the “supply” of healthcare to lower costs.

His program “would be free market-based,” the former New Mexico governor said.

“We could really blow the lid off of supply. With the healthcare bill that has passed, we’re going to have 16,000 new IRS agents to enforce this. How about 160,000 new doctors?


“If you talked about legislation to create 160,000 new doctors, you could talk about opening up admissions for doctors, you could have nurse practitioners taking over current roles, you could make it easier to get prescriptions, for example. It goes on and on.

“We’ve had a restricted supply of healthcare and it’s due to legislation. When this whole thing started, I had envisioned Gallbladders ‘R’ Us. That would be clinics that would specialize in gallbladder surgery at thousands of dollars as opposed to tens of thousands of dollars.”

He also told Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview: “There’s no advertised pricing right now in healthcare.

"I would not have health insurance to cover myself in a free market system for healthcare. I would have insurance to cover myself for catastrophic injury and illness and I would pay-as-you-go in a system that had advertised pricing that was very competitive.

“Healthcare is the only place we go where we have no idea what it’s going to cost. And if we ask somebody at the desk what’s this X-ray going to cost, what’s the procedure that I’m undergoing going to cost, they have no idea because it’s all insurance-based.”

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