Rome News-Tribune

Price a good choice for Trump

- From The Augusta Chronicle

There is, indeed, a doctor in the House. But not for long. Georgia Congressma­n Tom Price, a medical doctor, has been tapped to take over President Trump’s Health and Human Services Department — and to perform radical surgery on the nation’s ailing health care system. What an absolutely fabulous pick. We know Tom Price, and we can tell you he is one of the finest people in Washington. Stately, learned, experience­d and down to earth, Dr. Price is just the man for what ails us.

As he has watched the government clown car known as “Obamacare” make a circus of its internet rollout; inspire many health care providers to leave the business; inundate the remaining providers with a blizzard of paperwork and make-work; and send premiums and deductible­s soaring to unsustaina­ble levels, Dr. Price has known all along what really needed to be done.

“Under ‘Obamacare,’” Price said in 2015, “the American people are paying more for health care and getting less — less access, less quality, and fewer choices. The status quo and its defenders are empowering Washington and harming patients and doctors. With real, patient-centered reforms we can build a more innovative and responsive health care system — one that empowers patients and ensures they and their doctor have the freedom to make health care decisions without bureaucrat­ic interferen­ce or influence.”

Price made the statement after introducin­g the Empowering Patients First Act, which he said “puts patients, families and doctors in charge by focusing on the principles of affordabil­ity, accessibil­ity, quality, innovation, choices and responsive­ness.” Imagine that: a free-market approach in America! Wikipedia says it’s estimated that Price’s bill “would yield a net savings of $2.3 trillion over ten years, and would increase the number of insured individual­s by 29 percent” in a matter of years.

His bill isn’t the issue, though: It’s the expertise and thinking that went into it.

That expertise and thinking will now go into the agency tasked with fixing what’s been broken.

Superb choice.

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