With the U.S. Senate majority at stake in its two runoff elections, Georgia is on America’s mind right now. And with the pandemic affecting all Americans, setting the record straight on health care couldn’t be more important.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler promised to be an outsider. On health care, she delivered. Her thoughtful and creative voice brings a common-sense approach to one of the country’s most complex issues.
Some career politicians spend years struggling just to articulate clear talking points about health care. But in just one year in the Senate, Sen. Loeffler has done more than talk. She identified gaps in the current system and put forward real, practical solutions.
Sen. Loeffler easily could have played it safe and kept a low profile on health care, but instead she stepped forward to help those in need in Georgia.
Notably, Sen. Loeffler has sponsored important bills that help patients.
The first protects patients’ credit ratings and increases price transparency. Today, Georgians who do the responsible thing — like having insurance and complying with a payment plan — still regularly receive huge medical bills. Often their credit suffers, and sometimes they end up in bankruptcy, in the wake of bills they can’t afford up front or because of a surprise bill. This isn’t fair for Georgia’s patients, and the state’s economy is harmed as patients’ ability to get back on their feet suffers for years.
In response, Sen. Loeffler has led efforts on a Senate bill to protect patients’ credit ratings when they get hit with an unexpected medical bill.
Along with Sen. David Perdue, Sen. Loeffler has also made real price transparency in health care a priority. She has sponsored legislation to give patients meaningful estimates of medical prices before they arrive.
Real price transparency is long overdue.
But there’s more to this story, because Sen. Loeffler has gone a step further than others. She is working to give patients more than new information. She plans to give patients the tools to actually fight back when they face medical charges that amount to price gouging.
To a public exhausted by well-financed, well-connected special interests having their way in politics, Sen. Loeffler’s willingness to take on the entities that created a problem in the first place is refreshing.
Sen. Loeffler has sponsored a bill that protects patients’ access to short-term health-care plans. These plans are especially valuable to Georgians who face short-term needs but can’t afford long-term prices. People who could benefit include workers waiting for a new job’s health benefits to kick in, troops leaving the military, and all middle-class Georgians struggling to comply with Washington’s expensive, one-size-fits-all, mandate-based approach to health insurance.
Georgians who rely on these plans don’t choose them because they’re perfect. They choose them because their alternative is to go without insurance altogether. In taking the side of these Georgians against the Washington establishment, Sen. Loeffler’s background waiting tables while working to become the first member of her family to graduate college shines through.
There is a reason many politicians avoid real action on health care or make false promises they can’t keep. Solutions are much harder than talking points.
Sen. Loeffler’s short time in the Senate reveals an outsider’s appetite to challenge conventional wisdom and push to help Georgians. As Georgians vote in the runoff, they should remember these real, common-sense reforms and how they stand out from bumper sticker–friendly but budget-busting and private insurance–canceling ideas from the other side.
Josh Archambault and Scott Centorino are visiting senior fellows at the Opportunity Solutions Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization that seeks to improve lives by advocating for public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, individual liberty, and a limited, accountable government.
