I’m strongly in favor of having a free market healthcare system, and I’ve advocated free market healthcare policies as a state representative. In my opinion, our country hasn’t had a free market healthcare system for a long time. Even prior to Obamacare, there were far too many government controls and mandates within our nation’s healthcare system. When you look at graphs of the cost of healthcare and health insurance from the 1960’s to the current time, the cost of healthcare and health insurance has risen exponentially.

Prior to the federal government’s involvement in healthcare in the early 1960’s, the cost of healthcare and health insurance was just a fraction of what the cost is today. Government mandates, regulations, and spending programs have resulted in far higher healthcare and health insurance costs.

One good free market healthcare bill that we passed this session that I voted for was S Sub for HB 2279. This law that we passed will now allow nurse practitioners to practice independently in Kansas. Previously, nurse practitioners had to enter into a collaborative agreement with a physician in order to practice. They also had to pay the physician a fee each month that could sometimes be thousands of dollars per month. I believe this caused many APRN’s to choose to practice in states that allow independent practice, rather than paying this large fee.

Often times when an APRN practiced under a physician in the past, the physician wouldn’t even be in the same county. The physician may have been located on the opposite side of the state, and the physician would simply check in with the APRN every few months. In many cases, APRN’s were already practicing independently in all reality, but now they will be able to practice without having to pay a monthly fee to a physician. I believe this will cause more APRN’s to move to Kansas, and this will greatly benefit rural healthcare.