Crosstalk: July 7, 2016

Long before it was deemed to have passed, warnings had been given out regarding the devastating impact that Obamacare would have upon America. Many people have lost health insurance through their workplace or have been forced to leave their family doctor, even when long-term relationships have been established. Hours have been cut. Many healthcare workers have left the medical practice rather than be forced to comply with the new laws. Patient wait times are increasing. Many are having to succumb to a one-size-fits-all system for their medical treatment rather than have their individual needs addressed.

Is there a better way to do this? Joining Jim with a possible answer is Twila Brase. Twila is the president and co-founder of the Citizens' Council for Health Freedom. She's a registered nurse and produces the daily radio broadcast, 'Health Freedom Minute'.

House Speaker Paul Ryan introduced a health care plan that is supposed to be an alternative to Obamacare. According to Twila, Ryan's plan called, 'A Better Way', still has a lot of pieces of Obamacare in it. It has its own iteration of a mandate without actually calling it a 'mandate'. So overall she doesn't see Ryan's plan as being strong as far as taking health care in the direction toward health freedom.

Twila has unveiled a new initiative in Washington, D.C. called 'The Wedge of Health Freedom'. It's an acknowledgment that today there exists in the whole sphere of health care a 'free trade zone' where doctors and patients freely interact in a private, confidential, contractual relationship with each other.

This 'wedge', which is invisible to most of the American public, exists today so Twila wants to make the invisible, visible. In other words, this 'free trade zone' within health care does, in fact, exist and she wants people to be able to search this out.

Another reason for using the term 'wedge' is because this is a new movement. She not only wants to take the wedge and let people see that it exists, she wants to defend it by communicating that there's always a place where doctors and patients can come to freely interact together. She wants to protect that so that we have freedom in this capacity forever and it's not totally destroyed.

In addition, Twila wants to grow this initiative so that one day it is larger than just a 'wedge'. She believes there should be no one between the patient and the doctor. That's the ethical, trusted and confidential way to do health care as opposed to going to a payer and asking for permission to obtain care.

Is the 'wedge' for the uninsured, those who are insured, or both? How is privacy protected under the 'wedge' initiative? Will the 'wedge' initiative drive prices down? How is this being received by doctors? Twila provides the answers on this important edition of Crosstalk.