Tim Phillips: With essential reforms, Americans are reimagining health care

May 11, 2020 by AFP

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed regulations in our health care system that hurt Americans’ ability to receive the care they need, Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips wrote in a May 11 op-ed for RealClearHealth.

Phillips noted that FDA bureaucratic gridlock, certificate-of-need laws, telemedicine regulations, scope of practice restrictions, and other barriers reduce access to quality health care. While many states have enacted temporary measures to suspend those regulations, Phillips made the case that they should remove them permanently.

Such reforms would help Americans during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

Expanding telehealth gave providers more flexibility to work across borders and increase patients’ options for care. Now patients are able to see a doctor without risking exposure from a physical visit to the doctors’ office. Likewise, expanding the scope of practice for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses gave providers, like nurse practitioners, the chance to use the full extent of their medical training to give more patients access to quality care.

“These temporary changes are saving people’s lives right now,” Phillips wrote. “If we make them permanent, they’ll save people’s lives every day and we’ll be better prepared for the next crisis as well.”

“A vast number of Americans already share in this same sentiment,” he concluded.

Read the full op-ed to learn more about how Americans are reimagining health care.

Then, join the Health Care Reimagined campaign to help lift the barriers to better health care solutions.