Dr. Zane Gates believes that both the Affordable Care Act and the GOP plan are approaching healthcare from the same, wrong angle. He has actually set up his own version of healthcare in Blair County that focuses on care first.
He explained, “They are both approaching it form the exact same angle. ‘How can I put an insurance card in somebody’s hand?’ They are not approaching it about care and they feel that once you have an insurance card in someone’s hand they’re covered, but they’re not.”
Dr. Gates is the co founder of the Empower 3 Center for Health. The center offers healthcare at a monthly rate to cover all primary care needs. This includes wellness and injury treatment, x-rays, lab work and acute chronic illness treatment. All of this without deductibles or co-pays. The goal is provide care for what you know you’ll need. You would still need insurance for unexpected diseases and serious accidents.
Dr. Gates said,”You only insure the risk. So now, we make insurance more like insurance where it’s for the things you can’t completely predict. Emergency room, hospital, outpatient surgery, and expensive brand name drugs. The rest, you’re just paying a monthly membership for at a flat rate.”
The plan from Empower 3 differs from what is being debated nationally. Dr. Gates believes that the GOP’s healthcare proposals are going to show the same issues as the Affordable Care Act because its not primarily care focused. He says he doesn’t believe in the argument that the GOP plan would cut Medicaid. He believes that no matter what they do federally, cuts are going to be made at the state level in order to balance budgets.
He explained, “It’s going to have the same challenges and the same difficulties as the affordable care act until someone addresses the issue of fixing the problem that we have in using insurance as the conduit for our American healthcare system.”
The coverage from Empower 3 starts at $65 a month for the lowest plan and a flexible price of $175 for the highest plan. More on the Empower 3 plan can be found on their website.
