NEWT GINGRICH: The simplest way to make American life affordable again

Politicians push healthcare subsidies, but transparency offers real affordability solutions for families spending $27,000 yearly on coverage in 2024.

Second, sixty years of bureaucratic control — public and private — have utterly failed to contain costs. Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-1999 and a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. He is chairman of Gingrich 360.

Healthcare now consumes nearly one-fifth of our economy. It is the largest single cost for employers, the fastest-growing burden on families, and the quietest drain on national growth. Every dollar businesses spend on bloated health costs is a dollar not available for higher wages, new jobs or investment. Every dollar families spend on premiums or out-of-pocket costs is a dollar they can’t use for savings, housing or opportunity. Until we fix healthcare, we can’t fix affordability. 

It’s not that Washington ignores healthcare — it’s that it thinks about it too narrowly. Politicians obsess over temporary subsidies, tax credits and program expansions that make insurance more expensive to subsidize but never make care itself more affordable. The current fight over extending COVID-era insurance subsidies is a perfect example. Even supporters of Obamacare now admit that the "Affordable" Care Act turned out to be unaffordable. Their answer is to borrow more money to prop up a system that keeps getting worse. That is not reform — it’s surrender.