Having affordable access to the best quality healthcare is what Springfield voters expect. Eric's experience as a cost-cutter in healthcare is exactly what Jefferson City needs. Eric's time in healthcare has given him a unique insight into many of the problems that government causes which increases the costs to all of us.

We enjoy the greatest healthcare in the world. Fortunately it is still somewhat a competitive industry. Unfortunately government is way too involved. Eric's background in healthcare has helped him to see that hospitals and providers are overwhelmed and chained to situations that are not competitive. These extra costs burden us all in the form of taxes and insurance premiums.

It is unfortunate that we are far too insulated from the actual costs we are paying. When we pay for service at a hospital like CoxHealth or St. John's our rates are increased because of the underpayments of the non-insured people and who use Medicaid (MO Healthnet). Currently Medicaid only pays about 12 cents for every $1 of care. When a person pays for health insurance they are paying a hidden tax in their premiums because the government is shifting the costs back through the hospital and insurance companies by not picking up the tab. Steve Edwards, Vice President of CoxHealth, told the Springfield New-Leader on 6/13/2007, "We could cut prices by 60 percent if everyone would pay their bills." By raising the Medicaid reimbursement rates we, the tax-payer, will actually see more accurately the costs of our government insured and uninsured community. Eric's philosophy is that if government is going to be involved in Healthcare then the costs to taxpayers should be clear. 

Because of all of the layers of corporate and government bureaucracies healthcare has become price blind and quality silent. Americans enjoy the best healthcare quality in the world, but expense of healthcare has grown to be the single largest industry by percentage of the Gross Domestic Product. The sharp rise in the costs of healthcare are directly related and attributed to the decades of increased regulatory barriers that government has created to stop the healthcare industry from reacting to natural market forces. Let's get government out of the health care business!

Eric is for returning healthcare industry to one where prices are controlled by the natural forces of the free market and not by government. If patients chose to purchase health insurance then they should be insured through the private and competitive insurance marketplace rather than letting government be the insurance provider. If our goal is to get the costs of insurance premiums down so that more people can afford private insurance, then we must reduce the mandates on insurance and allow insurance companies to sell plans across state lines. The government disrupts the market by underpaying for Medicaid patients. In other words your health insurance premiums are higher because politicians have promised more than government can afford. Healthcare costs and insurance premium costs would go down if the government increased their reimbursement rate to match other market rates rather than making I-O-Us and underpayments.