Lessons from the Heartland about Real Health Care Reform

Mitch Daniels was elected Governor of Indiana in 2004.  He entered office with a wealth of private sector as well as high level political experience dating back to his days as an adviser to President Ronald Reagan.    Daniels introduced a true conservative concept related to providing health care for Indiana state employees when he took office – trust and empower individuals to make their own decisions through optional Health Savings Accounts (HSA). 

The results are remarkable. The optional program that began with only a handful of participants five years ago now has 70% of the state’s 30,000 participants enrolled at an estimated cost savings to the state of $20 million this year alone. 

“The Indiana experience confirms what common sense already tells us: A system built on ‘cost-plus’ reimbursement (i.e., the more a physician does, the more he or she gets paid) coupled with ‘free’ to the purchaser consumption, is a machine perfectly designed to over consume and overspend,” writes Gov. Daniels.  “It will never be controlled by top-down balloon-squeezing by insurance companies or the government. There will be no meaningful cost control until we are all cost controllers in our own right.”

If President Obama really wanted to “bend the curve” downward on health care costs, he should be embrace the lessons from Gov. Daniels and Indiana.   Instead, the current Democrat leadership seems intent on ramming a “government only” option instead of an “individual liberty” option down America’s throat.   “Americans can make sound, thrifty decisions about their own health,” Gov. Daniels believes.  “If national policy trusted and encouraged them to do so, our skyrocketing health-care costs would decelerate.” 

Read his entire Wall Street Journal guest editorial here.