Ben Carson is trying again. After floating a plan that would reportedly have scrapped Medicare and Medicaid, he took another shot Wednesday when he unveiled a new health care proposal.
The neurosurgeon-turned-presidential-candidate’s latest iteration touts “more freedom and less government” and aims to empower the doctor-patient relationship. It repeals Obamacare and makes changes to both Medicare and Medicaid, yet doesn’t abolish the programs.
“The needs of each patient are as unique as their individual fingerprints, and any action on the part of government—however well intentioned—is likely to set in motion a cascade of effects that reduces the quality of care patients receive,” Carson states in the plan’s introduction. “The best, most effective health care decisions are made at the granular level, between individual patients and doctors.”
The candidate has recently lost ground in national polls—which he attributed on Good Morning America to his lack of foreign policy experience—but on Wednesday, Carson turned attention back to health care. His plan hinges on tax-protected Health Empowerment Accounts that will automatically be opened for every American at birth. Money can be spent before first needing to meet deductibles as well as transferred between family members and across states lines.