Tom Coburn’s ‘Amish’ Suggestion of How to Fix Healthcare Surprised Joe Scarborough

My friend Tom Coburn always is saying things that are surprising — and sometimes surprisingly simple.  When he was on Morning Joe Wednesday, Joe Scarborough asked him if he thought our so-called political leaders were going to figure out an alternative to Obamacare.

Watch his answer:

Truth Revolt has the transcript:

“Here’s what’s important: you’re never going to solve health care until you have real competition out there.  If you had real competition, where people could see what things costs, you could lower the price of health care 30% tomorrow. We’ve proven that.  We know that.”

Coburn, who is a medical doctor, used the example of MRIs.  “There are things out there that will direct people to the cheapest MRI, to give you the best deal,” he said. “Americans know how to shop for things.”  When Joe Scarborough asked more directly about the MRI’s, former Senator Coburn came out with a rather surprising idea.  “Go look at Amish fathers,” he said.

“They buy the health care for about a third of what you pay because they go and find the best price. They go and work a deal and they actually are paying for it. Therefore they buy great quality at a lower price. All we need to do is copy what they are doing and we can solve our problems and we can reward excellence, which we should be because if you have a price but you’re better, you’ll get a better price. If you’re worse, people won’t come to you, that’s the other problem.”

You gotta love Coburn, a man who has built a rock solid reputation on both sides of the political aisle because of his relentless common sense and inability to stomach waste. Basically, he’s saying to let the markets decide on issues of health and personal care, not Big Government.

Yeah, it’s simple. It’s also what has shown to work over and over and over again.

Image Credit: Screen Cap