Originally published in The Examiner on 10/13/2009.

by Richard Lorenc

As members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee moved to approve Senator Max Baucus’s health care reform bill, 33 state-based public policy groups today unveiled a plan for “patient-centered health reform” that would improve health insurance access and options without creating an entirely new–and expensive–government bureaucracy.

Although many of these ideas aren’t new, this is the first time public policy leaders from across the country have come together to propose a unified alternative plan to what has been termed “ObamaCare.”

The premise of patient-centered health reform is simple: It empowers people to make their own health care decisions.

For one thing, patient-centered reform would allow you, as an individual, to take the tax deduction that your employer currently gets. This means you–not your employer–will own your health insurance policy.

Another element of the reform is permitting individuals and businesses to buy health insurance policies across state lines. It’s baffling but true: Illinois residents cannot currently buy plans from Wisconsin providers, nor can Californians buy plans from Delaware. Simply opening the private health insurance market would give providers a huge incentive to provide better, less expensive plans to lure customers.

Perhaps the biggest reform suggested by the think tank leaders deals with the basic way that Medicaid currently works. Where beneficiaries are now stuck in a bureaucratic system with few options, a patient-centered health reform for Medicaid would allow them to use their medical aid in a way they choose through a simple voucher system. Medicaid enrollees could then take their vouchers to the doctor of their choice, therefore improving access and quality, and allowing them to see–for the first time–just how much their health care costs.

Another important element of patient-centered health reform is it refrains from fining individuals if they do not have health insurance. The high cost of the “Baucus Bill” is defrayed, in part, by imposing $4 billion in fines on those who do not purchase health insurance. This sort of punitive measure does more to hurt those who choose not to purchase health insurance than help them.

In a press call on Tuesday, think tank leaders discussed the benefits of patient-centered health reform while also reflecting on how government-centric health care has fared in their states. Tarren Bragdon of the Maine Heritage Policy Center called Maine the poster child for why a government plan is a bad idea. “The plan promised to cover all the uninsured by 2009, not to raise taxes, and to reduce health care and insurance costs,” Bragdon said. “Costs have skyrocketed, and today we have more uninsured than when the plan began.”

Other studies have reached the same conclusion about how government-centric health care increases costs.

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study, as reported in the Washington Examiner, calculates the Baucus Bill would increase the cost of health insurance for the average American family to $21,300 by 2016. Without the law, it would rise only to $18,400 from its current $12,300.

Regardless of the talking points of its supporters, government-centric health care would put a higher cost burden on nearly everyone.

While many have aired skepticism at plans to expand government’s role in health insurance, few have provided concrete alternatives. A patient-centered health care approach would address the health concerns of Americans by giving them individual control over their health decisions.

Health reform advocates who honestly seek to help people beat illness and stay healthy should open their minds to the alternative ideas of patient-centered health reform that saves money, rewards them for good health decisions and, perhaps most of all, empowers patients.