Bringing American healthcare into the light
Americans pay more for healthcare than anyone in the world, and get worse results in return.
The case
Healthcare may be the rare issue in American life that rises above politics. Republicans, Democrats, and independents disagree on almost everything. But ask anyone what they want from the healthcare system and you hear the same four things: better access, better outcomes, lower costs, and more confidence.
Beneath the statistics is a feeling shared across every divide. Most Americans have never truly been in control of their own healthcare. Taking Control is the effort to change that, by giving the country a clear, honest view of how its healthcare actually works.
$15,000 per person, a year · nearly one fifth of the economy
The problem
Every visit, test, and prescription creates a record of what was done, what it cost, and who paid for it. But those records sit scattered across more than a thousand insurers, each in its own format.
Today only about 10% of Americans, those in traditional Medicare, have data that can actually be studied. For the other 90%, the information is fragmented and out of view. So waste goes uncaught, prices stay hidden, and the biggest questions in medicine get answered with fragments. It is not a failure of effort, expertise, or technology. It is a structural blind spot.
The idea
The answer is not government-run healthcare. It is not eliminating private insurance, and it is not rationing care.
It is a secure, standardized national system that brings the country's health information into one clear set of books, so cost, care, and outcomes can finally be seen and studied across the whole population. You decide what to share, and you can opt out at any time. Nothing about it is radical. It is simply accountability, the same thing we expect of every other trillion-dollar part of American life.
What it unlocks
The same connected picture pays off in four directions at once. Each one, on its own, would be worth the effort.
01 — Lower costs
At least a third of what we spend on healthcare is waste, fraud, and abuse, and almost none of it gets caught, because no single insurer ever sees the whole picture. Connect the data and the patterns come into view. Put prices in the open, and providers compete on cost and quality instead of confusion.
Even modest savings would return $1 trillion+ a year to families and taxpayers.
02 — Life-saving technology
When care and outcomes can be studied across the entire population, medicine speeds up. Researchers could compare millions of real patient journeys to find what truly works for diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and maternal care. Dangerous drug side effects could be caught in real time instead of years later, and new tools would finally have complete, trustworthy information to learn from.
From 10% to 100% of the population, finally studyable.
03 — National standing
Nearly every other developed nation already has a national health data system. We do not, and it is a major reason we spend the most and see some of the worst outcomes in the developed world. A connected system would let the country learn from its entire population, not just the small share on Medicare and Medicaid. When other nations can move faster on cures, treatments, and public-health threats and we cannot, that gap becomes a real disadvantage, for our health and our security alike.
Most developed nations already have this. We don't.
04 — Privacy & control
The first question is always about privacy, and it is exactly the right one to ask. But your health data is already bought and sold today, and many of the apps on your phone store it entirely outside HIPAA. A secure national system, built under HIPAA with strict access controls and the right to opt out, would be far better protected than the scattered reality we live with now. It means one accountable home for your health information, that you control.
Transparency, lower costs, and better care are common ground
Why now
Healthcare is becoming one of the defining issues of the years ahead, and there is real room for a clear, common-sense answer that belongs to no party.
Wanting to see your own care, cut the waste, and speed up cures is not a political position. It is simple good sense, and it already has broad support across the country. What it needs now is a clear name and people willing to carry it forward.
This is how we build a healthcare system that finally works for the people who depend on it. If that is a future you would like to help build, we would love to keep you close.
Occasional updates on the effort. Nothing more.