State Of The Union Address And Healthcare

President Trump said the sweetest two words regarding healthcare during the State Of The Union address and everyone missed it. Trump stated the solution to the healthcare problem that is so good that it will completely cure us of not only high medical costs but Obamacare and the many ill side effects of it.

But what is the problem with healthcare? What was the reasoning behind Obamacare? Was it quality of care? Nope. Availability of care? Nope. The problem with healthcare has been cost. Nancy Pelosi would have never said we need to pass the healthcare bill to see what’s inside of it and Obamacare would have never been birthed if healthcare cost had been kept down to a manageable level.

So if the issue was cost, why then, did we have to suffer all those years with the painful process of creating socialized medicine? Why were we so eager to turn our healthcare and medicinal needs over to the federal government? Why didn’t we just take the direct approach and address the actual problem of the cost?

During the State Of The Union (SOTU) address, President Trump did just that!

President Trump:

“The next major priority for me, and for all of us, should be to lower the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs, and to protect patients with preexisting conditions.” 

(Applause.)

“Already, as a result of my administration’s efforts, in 2018, drug prices experienced their single largest decline in 46 years.” 

(Applause.)

“But we must do more.  It’s unacceptable that Americans pay vastly more than people in other countries for the exact same drugs, often made in the exact same place.  This is wrong, this is unfair, and together we will stop it — and we’ll stop it fast.” 

(Applause.)

“I am asking Congress to pass legislation that finally takes on the problem of global freeloading and delivers fairness and price transparency for American patients, finally.” 

(Applause.)

“We should also require drug companies, insurance companies, and hospitals to disclose real prices to foster competition and bring costs way down.” 

(Applause.)

Hallelujah! Thank you Dear Lord! Finally a common sense direct approach to lowering healthcare cost that doesn’t turn one-sixth of the nation’s economy over to the federal government. No new, massive and grossly inefficient bureaucracy to have to struggle with.

“Fostering competition” should be the sweetest two words the consumer and the patient could ever hear. Lack of competition or the lack of the need for competition is a primary reason why healthcare costs are so high. Create competition so that the pharmaceutical companies have to vie for our business, not only in price but in quality of product and service.

What the president proposed during the SOTU address, fostering competition, is nothing new, it’s always been known and is the answer to reigning in cost. Now all that has to be done is to just do it!

Bill Hitchcock