ATR Releases Empower Patients Initiative

Today, Americans for Tax Reform released the Empower Patients Initiative, co-authored by Vance Ginn, Ph.D., staff economist at ATR, president of Ginn Economic Consulting, and former Chief Economist at the White House Office of Management and Budget under President Trump, and Deane Waldman, M.D., M.B.A., a nationally recognized pediatric cardiologist, former Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Emeritus Professor at the University of New Mexico.

With the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) laying the groundwork for expanding Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), there’s momentum to give Americans more control over their health care. The Empower Patients Initiative builds on that foundation, offering principles to restore free-market exchanges between patients and doctors, without third parties making the decisions.

America’s healthcare challenge isn’t about a lack of money, it’s about a lack of agency. We spend over $4.8 trillion a year, yet patients face longer wait times, higher prices, and fewer choices. Government rules and third-party payers have hijacked decision-making, leaving people with “coverage” but no real choice and no timely access to care.  

The Empower Patients Initiative charts a better path, one that empowers people, not bureaucracies.

Key reforms include:

• Creating No-limit HSAs, a single, tax-free account with no caps, no expiration, and no federal controls
• Deregulating providers and insurers to allow real competition and innovation
• Replacing Medicaid’s broken funding formula with federal block grants to states, giving them the flexibility to design safety nets that serve the truly vulnerable, not bureaucrats in Washington
• Putting the $23,968 that employers now give to insurance companies directly into workers’ hands
• Eliminating BURRDEN (Bureaucracy, Unnecessary Rules and Regulations, Directives, Enforcement, and Noncompliance) that wastes up to $2.4 trillion annually

This approach gets Washington out of the way and puts patients back at the center restoring choice, driving down costs, providing care when needed, and improving outcomes.

We urge legislators, congressional staff, grassroots leaders, and the public to read the full initiative on the ATR website and the companion book, Empower Patients: Two Doctors’ Cure for Healthcare, to learn how we can finally fix American healthcare.