Healthcare

One reason I’m standing for Congress is to initiate a new forward-thinking discussion on healthcare. America finds answers when we ask the right questions. There are four specific discussions that as your Congresswoman I will bring to the floor of the House. The first has to do with the inefficient and wasteful way we spend our health care dollars. The second has to do with how medical care and medicine is not subject to the free market. The third has to do with introducing new medicine that may save lives, ease suffering, and save money. And the fourth with how Congress is influenced when making health care policy.

1) Shift Our Focus to Preventative and Wellness

The way to beat illness is to prevent it from occurring. Heart disease, cancer and respiratory illness are responsible for 50% of all deaths in America, yet these illnesses can be contained with early

prevention. 75% of healthcare spending in the US is for largely preventable diseases. We can prevent chronic disease rather than treat it.

• Reward those who receive annual blood tests with reduced premiums or even tax breaks.
• Make blood tests a requisite for Medicaid recipients
• Expand and utilize personalized genetic testing to identify people at high risk
• Tax breaks for employers who emphasize wellness in their plans.

2) Price Transparency for Medical Services and Pharmaceuticals

Politicians tell us free-market solutions and healthy competition in the market control costs. Then why not in the healthcare market? Why is it so difficult to know the price of a hip replacement or a broken leg or even a checkup? Price transparency will eliminate arbitrary pricing, lower costs increase quality of care.

• Require prices for procedures, doctors and hospitals be publicly available on their website
• Pharmaceutical drugs costs are deliberately hidden from consumers. Meds should cost what the market will bear, with Big Pharma in open price competition for our business.
• Accelerate the FDA approval process to increase competition.

3) Let’s Discuss the Legalization of Medical Cannabis

There exists enough evidence to suggest that in some cases, medical cannabis can have positive effects. Let’s have the discussion, conduct more studies and make an informed decision as to whether legalized medical cannabis should be made legal.

• There are at least two active chemicals in cannabis with medicinal applications: cannabidiol (CBD), which impacts the brain without a high, and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which has pain relieving properties.
• National Eye Institute studies revealed that cannabis can be used to treat and prevent glaucoma
• Several studies have proven that cannabis can help prevent epileptic seizures
• Studies by the Scripps Institute found that THC slows the progression of Alzheimer’s disease

4) Big Pharma and the Medical Industry

Big Pharma spends hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying congress. It’s all hush-hush, not to be discussed, it is taboo to mention it on the floor of the US House of Representatives. It is a gentleman’s agreement in the old boys club not to call out dark money they all pocket. If Congress were to openly and honestly debate the effects of PAC money on the health industry, the public would demand its elimination.

Stop funding politicians and candidate taking money from Big Pharma. Period.