Today we enjoy unprecedented medical technologies, but the economic model, driven by too many government mandates and subsidies, has made medical treatment unaffordable for far too many families. More subsidies and mandates, including the mandate to buy the federal government’s brand of medical insurance has not fixed the problem. Allowing true free-market principles back into medicine will help put us on a path back to health-care sanity and help to break up the monopolies currently in place.

In the Colorado legislature I have introduced bills to put free-market solutions in our Medicaid system, which would save taxpayer dollars and give Medicaid recipients more freedom in choosing their own care. I was also the sponsor of the bill that allows the $4 prescription drug programs in Colorado, providing real world, free-market solutions for our citizens’ medical needs.

In 2017 I sponsored SB-65, requiring the posting of most common charges for all hospitals and clinics. This gives doctors and patients much greater awareness of the actual cost of medical care, which is an essential step in controlling the spiraling costs of medical care.

On the national level I had a part in promoting faith-based medical cost sharing programs which is now a legal alternative to the individual mandate in Obamcare medical insurance.

With my background as chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services committee, chairman of the Health Exchange Legislative Oversight Committee and member of the Joint Budget Committee, as the next state treasurer I can speak to these issues with knowledge and authority.