What can we do so that individuals and families can afford health insurance, and enjoy choice among health care providers? How can we best help people become, and stay, financially self-sufficient? Cascade Policy Institute's approach to these policy issues emphasizes individual - rather than governmental - control and responsibility.
Cascade has addressed Oregon's major health care concerns - provider choice and cost containment - with common sense principles. First, individuals must be empowered to make their own health care decisions. Second competition must be reintroduced to the health care sector, from physicians' services to hospital services to health insurance. Cascade has advanced Medical Savings Accounts and other competition-based ideas as a way to attain greater patient power and lower health care costs.
Any discussion of welfare reform should be accompanied by the ideal of subsidiarity: problems should be solved at the most local level possible, beginning with family, friends, and private charitable organizations, including churches, civic organizations, and public service groups. To foster the role of charity, Cascade advocates removing government roadblocks that hinder care providers offering a helping hand, or that unnecessarily raise the cost of doing so.
Likewise, Cascade advocates the removal of legal obstacles that thwart the ambitious poor in their bid to make an honest living. Among the obstacles to self-sufficiency are occupational licensing laws; grants of monopoly or special privilege that raise the cost of basic goods and services, or prevent individuals from starting a business; and taxes on basic services such as telephone and water and sewer. Cascade also endeavors to identify counterproductive regulations and taxes that hinder the expansion of employment opportunities within existing organizations.
Cascade has addressed Oregon's major health care concerns - provider choice and cost containment - with common sense principles. First, individuals must be empowered to make their own health care decisions. Second competition must be reintroduced to the health care sector, from physicians' services to hospital services to health insurance. Cascade has advanced Medical Savings Accounts and other competition-based ideas as a way to attain greater patient power and lower health care costs.
Any discussion of welfare reform should be accompanied by the ideal of subsidiarity: problems should be solved at the most local level possible, beginning with family, friends, and private charitable organizations, including churches, civic organizations, and public service groups. To foster the role of charity, Cascade advocates removing government roadblocks that hinder care providers offering a helping hand, or that unnecessarily raise the cost of doing so.
Likewise, Cascade advocates the removal of legal obstacles that thwart the ambitious poor in their bid to make an honest living. Among the obstacles to self-sufficiency are occupational licensing laws; grants of monopoly or special privilege that raise the cost of basic goods and services, or prevent individuals from starting a business; and taxes on basic services such as telephone and water and sewer. Cascade also endeavors to identify counterproductive regulations and taxes that hinder the expansion of employment opportunities within existing organizations.
