Increasing government involvement is not going to solve the healthcare cost problem, according to Wayne Deschambeau, president and CEO of Wayne HealthCare in Greenville, Ohio.
"Moving toward a government-run health care system ... will only serve to make the problems we currently face that much worse," Mr. Deschambeau wrote in an op-ed for The Daily Advocate.
He believes Democratic proposals like "Medicare for All" will lead to tax increases, difficulty accessing healthcare services, and ultimately, lower quality of care. Instead, Mr. Deschambeau advocated for building on the ACA to make it more efficient.
He also called on providers to step up and improve care management for patients with multiple chronic conditions, particularly those who are responsible for the highest costs. In Ohio, half of Medicaid costs are generated by just 5 percent of enrollees, Mr. Deschambeau writes, citing a statistic from Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Those costs primarily stem from "our inability to manage the care needs of individuals suffering from numerous chronic conditions and elderly that can no longer care for themselves in their own home environment," he writes.
Read the full op-ed here.
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