The Healthcare system in the United States is in desperate need of significant reform. We need to take decisive steps to move today's bureaucracy driven, heavily regulated third-party payment system to a new patient-centered system of consumer choice and real free-market competition. I believe we can make health care more affordable through a competitive, open, and transparent health care system where America's families choose their own doctor and health care plans.

Here are several principles that should guide our public policy approach to health care reform: greater choices of doctors, hospitals and health plans, greater tax fairness and simplification, the ability to buy insurance across state lines, greater health care price disclosure, and more competition between facilities. And here are some principles our public policy should avoid: increased government mandates or price controls, new government programs or the expansion of existing programs.

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