About OCPA

Who wants politicians to have more control over their bodies? That is the question at the core of many health care policy debates. OCPA supports individual freedom and opposes the politicization of medical care. Government control tends to entrench the status quo and stifle innovation--and when it comes to medicine, that costs lives. Government subsidies also tend to drive up prices, which has happened in medicine for the last half century. There is a better way.

People need food and shelter, but we only rely on government to provide those things as a last resort for the very poor. Why is that? Because human beings do best when we are responsible for ourselves. That gives us the strongest incentives to take care of ourselves. As soon as someone else claims they will take care of us, the good incentives start to break down. And when someone else offers to pay for things we want or need, our incentive to get the best price breaks down, too.

If we want world-class medical care, with life-saving innovations and affordable prices, the only way to get it is the system of individual freedom and responsibility that people call the free market. We will continue to have a safety net for those with dire needs, but even this is best done through community-based charities rather than national bureaucracies.