McCain’s plan better than Obama’s

It is time to admit publicly that America’s $2.3 trillion healthcare system is broken. The next president must lead our country in enacting real healthcare reform.

Such reform will either force our nation into a government-controlled bureaucracy or provide Americans with the freedom to choose solutions that best fit their individual needs. Americans must decide who they’ll allow in their medical exam rooms. Will it be government bureaucrats, lawyers and career politicians? Or will it just be them and their doctors?

Three principles I learned back in medical school are essential to becoming a trusted physician, and they are also essential to finding solutions to our healthcare crisis.

The first principle is to do no harm. Over the last 10 years, 15 Nobel prizes in medicine have come from America, and just seven have gone to researchers outside the country. America has the best doctors in the world, the best scientists in the world and the best hospitals in the world.

We cannot allow government price-controls, rationing and restrictions to strangle life-saving innovation. America needs to harness the power of individual freedom — in a market that plays by the rules — to create the best healthcare system in the world.

The second principle is that if you listen carefully, the patient will tell you what is wrong.

Healthcare costs are rising at an unacceptable rate. Too many patients feel trapped by healthcare decisions dictated by HMOs or government bureaucrats. Too many doctors are torn between practicing medicine and practicing insurance. And far too many people have to worry what will happen to them or their children if they get sick. It is past time to chart a new course.

The change offered by the Democratic presidential nominee is simply a repackaging of “solutions” from the all-too-familiar liberal playbook: more government mandates, new federal handouts and higher taxes. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) recently said in a town hall meeting that, “If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system.”

The reality is that we do not have the ability to start from scratch. The reforms that we enact should work to move the system toward our vision of what the ideal healthcare system should look like. The Republican presidential nominee believes it should be a system built around patients and their doctors. Obama has said that it should be built around government and bureaucrats.

Americans deserve better than top-heavy bureaucratic government rationing. The problem is not that we don’t spend enough on healthcare; it’s that we are not spending this money effectively. Americans deserve a comprehensive examination of what’s wrong and straight talk on the real issues at hand. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) proposes solutions to our healthcare crisis that would put doctors and patients back at the center of healthcare decisions.

The final principle is that if something has already been done and doesn’t work — don’t repeat it. Experience has proven that government-controlled systems will all eventually limit access to care and cutting-edge treatments. The British government is now spending a fortune on its single-payer system in order to reduce the chemotherapy wait time for cancer patients from a year to three months.

Even in the U.S., nearly 40 percent of physicians restrict access to Medicaid patients. Despite these failed policies of the past, Sen. Obama’s proposals represent a direct trajectory toward a single-payer system. Sen. Obama’s plan would throw American’s hard-earned tax dollars on new government bureaucracies and entitlements. McCain’s proposals for real change put American families at the center of healthcare decisions that fit their needs.

The next president owes it to our fellow Americans to find a long-term, comprehensive solution that will make our healthcare system work for every American every time. We can make healthcare cheaper, better, and widely available, if the next president will muster the vision and the political courage to act.

Coburn is a doctor and a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.