Ben Carson: Obamacare's Failure Helping National Dialogue on Healthcare

While Obamacare was "a costly mistake," it had the benefit of launching a national dialogue about how to achieve "much-needed health care reform," writes columnist and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in The Washington Times.

Carson argued that partisanship must be set aside and "an array of opinions" ought to be considered in developing an alternative to Obamacare that preserves individual choice.

Any plan, in Carson's view, should be funded "in a manner that involves everyone on a proportional basis." It needs to provide "basic medical and surgical coverage."

Medical decision-making should be left with the patient and caregiver. And there should be "absolute freedom" to select insurance that best suits the particular needs of enrollees and their families.

Arrangements also need to be made to address the cost of catastrophic or chronic debilitating conditions.

To address the heavy cost of medical litigation, Carson favors "a mechanism … to provide for individuals who sustain injuries from medical treatments that does not require complex and expensive legal involvement.

Carson, a professor emeritus of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, concludes that "whether we are Democrats, Republicans, or independents, we must not forget that we cannot simply impose our will on our fellow citizens, no matter how noble we believe our cause to be."

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