America has a healthcare crisis. Democrats tried to fix the problem their way in 2010 when they passed the Affordable Care Act during the Obama Administration. Today we know that legislation as ObamaCare.

But ObamaCare has not lived up to its promises of reducing healthcare costs for the average American family. ObamaCare has only succeeded in putting more people on another government entitlement, greatly increasing the enrollment of Medicaid. The costs for everyone else keep going up forcing politicians to push for more government subsidies. But throwing good money after bad is no solution to a problem.

John C. Goodman is a healthcare economist. He offers some solutions to the problem along with co-author Pete Sessions (Congressman from Texas) in an article published by The Hill. They say in order to fix a problem you have to first acknowledge a problem exists.

According to Gallup, one in four Americans are fully aware American has a healthcare crisis. This crisis is most evident on the Affordable Care Act exchange. These authors tell us since 2014, premiums in Affordable Care Act plans have increased twice as fast as employer plan premiums and three times as fast as overall inflation. Last year, the average deductible in the most commonly selected plan was $4,572, more than twice as high as in an average employer plan ($1,787). The maximum out-of-pocket expense in the average exchange plan also was more than twice as high ($9,450) as in the average employer plan ($4,750).

For most people enrolled in an exchange plan, the insurance is free, or almost free. Four out of five enrollees (19 million) are paying $10 or less per month, and more than half of those are paying no premium at all. If you are healthy, the only care you need is preventive care, which is also free.

Unfortunately, exchange plans are not accepted by many of the best doctors and medical centers. Without changes, this year the out-of-pocket exposure in all Affordable Care Act exchange plans will be $10,600 for an individual and twice that for a family. So in other words, ObamaCare is a bargain for those who don’t really need insurance. But for patients who are chronically ill or require expensive medical care, it can be a financial disaster.

Sessions has proposed the Healthcare Fairness for All Act as a solution to the problem. It contains the following basic elements:

A real market for health insurance. Let insurers do what they are not allowed to do: offer a wide variety of products so people can purchase the insurance that best suits their needs with their own money. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, people who purchase alternatives to Affordable Care Act insurance are paying less than half of the premiums charged in today’s exchange.

So, what if people choose a plan that doesn’t cover a problem like substance abuse because they mistakenly think no one in their household has that problem? Let a family that discovers a medical condition not covered by their chosen insurance plan, but covered under ObamaCare, enroll immediately in a benchmark exchange silver plan.

Tax credits. People who purchase insurance outside the exchanges should receive a refundable tax credit, which in most cases would cover more than half the cost of the insurance. As an alternative, people could have a tax credit equal to the subsidy they would have received if they had entered the ObamaCare exchange. Tax credits also could be used to pay premiums and make deposits to Roth Health Savings Accounts.

Special needs plans for the chronically ill. State governments should offer safety net health plans designed for residents with costly chronic conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, respiratory disease, etc. This should be similar to what happens in the Medicare Advantage program.

Roth Health Savings Accounts. These accounts should be flexible enough to meet the needs of the chronically ill. After a period of time, withdrawals for non-medical purposes should be without taxes or penalties — allowing patients to reap the economic rewards from being smart shoppers in the medical marketplace.

Employer plans. Employers should have the discretion to stay in the current system of tax subsidies or move to a tax credit system. Under the latter, employees could convert wasteful health care spending dollar-for-dollar into higher take-home pay.

These are all good solutions to the current healthcare crisis. The real problem right now is getting both political parties to agree we have a problem.

Affordability. That’s the newest catch word in the political world. Democrats think it’s the key to success in the 2026 mid-term elections. The recent election of a communist mayor in New York City, who made this his campaign theme, has encouraged this strategy.

Republicans think they have the upper hand in this strategy. President Trump is now on the campaign trail again pushing the same agenda. Which side has the stronger argument?

There is no doubt that the Biden era brought us unprecedented inflation. While the peak of that inflation was 9%, the current level is now below three percent under President Trump. But many Americans aren’t celebrating because many things are still too expensive.

One important area where prices are coming down is prescription drugs. Peter Loftus, writing for The Wall Street Journal, says, “Drugmakers are doing something unusual this year: slashing prices for several widely used medicines. The companies made their typical round of price increases to start the year. In addition, they also made big cuts to U.S. list prices for widely used drugs for diabetes, blood clotting and other conditions.”

A big factor: federal government policy changes, including lower prices that Medicare negotiated and took effect for the first time this year. All told, 20 brand-name drugs had list-price cuts this month, ranging from 9.8% to 91.7%, according to 46brooklyn Research, a Dayton, Ohio-based firm that analyzes drug pricing.

Among them were a 43% cut to the list price for blood thinner Eliquis from Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb and a 44.4% drop for diabetes treatment Jardiance from Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly. “These are heavyweight drugs, and to see them crater in price like this is historic,” said Antonio Ciaccia, chief executive of 46brooklyn.

There is a reason why these prices are coming down and President Trump should get the credit. Americans pay about three times what other wealthy nations do for branded prescription drugs. For years, policymakers have tried to fix this by cutting U.S. drug prices directly. President Trump has pushed a different idea: make foreign countries pay more so Americans can pay less.

David Wainer, writing in The Wall Street Journal, says, “Last year, after threatening the industry with crushing tariffs, Trump secured several commitments. The most important one: Drugmakers agreed to charge the U.S. no more than what other wealthy countries pay for newly launched medicines, as part of a policy known as “most favored nation,” or MFN.”

On paper, it makes sense. If American prices are tethered to what the U.K. or Switzerland pays, drugmakers would need to raise prices abroad and lower them in the U.S. to balance things out. But the reality is messier. How do you persuade cash-strapped governments to write bigger checks to an industry they already resent? And will pharma companies actually lower U.S. prices, or simply pocket the gains from charging Europe more?

What is clear is that pharmaceutical executives are eager to seize the moment. They now have leverage that was lacking in the past, including the full backing of U.S. trade representatives and the Commerce Department. The U.K. has already agreed to increase what it pays for medicines as part of a wider trade deal with the Trump administration. Germany and Switzerland are signaling greater openness on the issue as well.

The recent lowering of drug prices mentioned at the start of this article shows that Trump’s approach is already paying dividends to the American people. Drug prices are coming down and that makes them more affordable.

President Trump has put forth his ideas on how to fix the broken ObamaCare healthcare system. The Democrats aren’t interested in solutions to ObamaCare for two reasons; ObamaCare is their baby, passed without a single Republican vote in 2010, so they don’t want to admit they made any mistakes. Second, their goal is full government control of healthcare – socialized medicine – and ObamaCare comes closest to that goal of any U.S healthcare system.

But ObamaCare is an absolute failure, requiring additional government subsidies to keep it affordable regardless of President Obama’s promises it would lower the cost of healthcare. But rather than fix the problems, Democrats only want to throw more government money, (that’s your money and mine) as a temporary solution.

This means Republicans are fighting an uphill battle to improve the system since they can’t count on the support of Democrats. But Trump is putting forth his ideas for solutions so Democrats can’t say he doesn’t have any. The American people can decide who is better to trust with their healthcare.

Natalie Andrews and Sabrina Siddiqui, writing for The Wall Street Journal, say, “The White House released a healthcare framework on Thursday, called “The Great Healthcare Plan,” which seeks to lower prescription drug prices, increase price transparency and redirect federal subsidies from insurers to consumers. Passing the proposal into law is expected to be a tall order for a gridlocked Washington that has struggled for months to agree on a healthcare compromise aimed at easing higher premiums and other costs for millions of Americans. 

The plan brings together ideas that have been pitched by several lawmakers and asks Congress to codify executive actions designed to bring U.S. drug prices in line with the lowest level paid by other rich countries. The plan wouldn’t replace the Affordable Care Act, which many Republicans campaigned on repealing. White House officials said the measures would give more power to consumers if all the proposals were passed.

The framework is light on details and doesn’t endorse specific bills or give a timeline for when Trump wants it passed. But it does seek to codify many of the actions Trump has taken on addressing healthcare costs. The proposal doesn’t endorse extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which expired in December. Rather than paying insurers through the subsidies, Trump’s plan would instead deposit those funds directly into a savings account, similar to a Health Savings Account, and implement a cost-sharing reduction program.

“Instead of putting the needs of big corporations and special interests first, our plan finally puts you first and puts more money in your pocket,” Trump said in a video posted on the White House’s social-media accounts. “The big insurance companies lose and the people of our country win.” The plan calls for price transparency, ​​urging “any healthcare provider or insurer who accepts Medicare or Medicaid to prominently post their pricing and fees.” Price transparency bills in Congress have support from Republicans and Democrats.

Trump’s plan seeks to “end kickbacks from pharmacy-benefit managers to the large brokerage middlemen” to lower costs. Lawmakers from both parties have criticized pharmacy-benefit managers, which usually play a key role in getting prescriptions filled and reimbursed, for what the administration says is anticompetitive tactics that keep drug prices artificially high.

Some Republicans have openly called for more engagement from Trump, who has largely stayed out of the debate and received conflicting advice from aides on how to approach the subsidies. The president and his party have found themselves caught between fears that voters will punish Republicans if healthcare costs skyrocket in a midterm year defined by affordability—and concerns that backing any measure tied to the Obamacare healthcare law could spark backlash from a conservative base that has long opposed it.

The American people need to understand that Democrats are moving to take away your private insurance policy and force everyone onto a government-controlled healthcare system. That means socialized medicine and that always leads to restricted access to care, rationing of care, and denial of expensive treatments to those not considered worthy of the expense by the government. No one should be forced to accept such a system.