Recently, the Senate passed their version of socialized healthcare. The only groups that were happy with the bill were the Health Insurance Lobbies. The bill requires that all US Citizens pay one of these HMO organizations or be heavily fined, and failure to pay this fine will result in spending time in Federal Prison and getting saddled with a felony record.

I don't know about you, but making the poor and the middle class Americans pony up huge sums of money to pay off the Health Insurance companies (so their CEO's can get bigger bonuses and purchase their ninth Ferarri, I am sure) is not my idea of reform!

Indeed, we need to reform our healthcare system in NC and in the US. Government involvement in our healthcare markets has already shot the costs up exponentially and reduced the quality of care. More government intervention is likely to make the problem even worse.

We need to be able to purchase health care coverage from any provider willing to sell it to us, and not be restricted by the government to purchasing only those plans which they certify and approve. Furthermore, we need to cut out the middleman entirely, and thus reduce costs back to where they were before they became too expensive to buy without insurance.

One way to do this is through tort reform. On account of the current litigious environment in medicine, we already pay more than twice what we should just to cover the cost of legal premiums and unnecessary testing.

Another way to do this is by allowing out of State (and even in-State!) competition to reduce insurance costs and increase quality of service.

Probably the best way is through the use of Medical Savings Accounts. If we all had MSA's that were completely tax-free, and attached to ourselves individually, then the bulk of employer health plans could be deposited into these tax-free MSA's and we would only need to carry insurance for catastrophic and long term coverage -- at about 1/4 to 1/8 the cost of standard HMO insurance plans.

Furthermore, law could be drafted that only authorizes debits from an MSA based on medical or pharmaceutical licenses. This will effectively cut out the middlemen in healthcare, who consume 70% of the costs but only provide 10% of the value.

What's more, by allowing these MSA's to mature into cash in 10 years -- again withdrawn tax-free -- we will greatly increase the motivation to actually use the MSA's. More often than not younger people who do not need a great deal of medical care will be stacking their MSA's with funds knowing that in 10 years they will be able to draw out tax-free cash, but this will result in the vast majority of Americans keeping large accounts available for medical expenses.

Other consequences of generally shifting to a MSA-plus-catastrophic-coverage plan will be that people will not only begin to shop around for doctors (reducing costs and increasing services across the board) but the individuals will begin to take charge of their own healthcare instead of nameless and faceless bureaucrats in offices far, far away.

This is a critical step that we must take along the path towards restoring the sovereign citizen, and restoring the Constitutional order. The principle of self-ownership has application across an entire spectrum of policies.

We can start this movement right here in North Carolina, by authorizing tax-free MSA's from which deposits into will mature to cash after 10 years, establishing regulations that require a medical or pharmaceutical license to otherwise debit from an MSA (allowing for over the counter purchases of medicine from a pharmacy as well as alternative medicinal practices), creating tort reform, opening competition by removing market barriers while aggressive pursuing fraud, and encouraging a transition amongst insurance companies into a catastrophic coverage footing.

I know that we can dramatically reduce costs for medical care across the board, while not only increasing the quality of services, but also covering more citizens and ensuring that doctors are fairly compensated.

Therefore I intend to introduce a North Carolina Healthcare Freedom Act, which will assert that each of us as sovereign individuals own our own bodies and can make our own choices regarding health care and coverage. Permitting MSA's, and authorizing the kinds of proper regulations that will reform the system for all of our citizens.