Though Dr. Ben Carson recently retired after a 36-year career practicing medicine at prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital, he is far from finished advocating for health and healing.
Regarding his continued work in healthcare, Dr. Carson stated, “I now find myself deeply immersed in trying to heal the health care environment, because if you cure the organism and put it back into a sick environment, you really have not accomplished very much.”
As Breitbart News reported on February 24th, Carson traveled to Sikeston, MO on February 22nd to deliver a speech to a packed house, a topic of which was the importance of quality healthcare policies not rooted in politics but in people. On Wednesday, the doctor went into more detail about healthcare and why he’s committed to “replacing Obamacare with patient-centered reforms that will allow every American access to the best, most affordable care in the world.”
Dr. Carson shared the story of a young man named T.J. on whom he performed several brain surgeries after T.J. was diagnosed with a brain tumor at only nine months of age. Though he was never expected to live to see two years of age, T.J. survived–and during Dr. Carson’s time in Missouri a couple weeks ago, he was reunited with the 21-year old young man. Stories like this, he said, explain why he is chairman of the Save Our Healthcare Project. Because the healthcare battle is “bigger than any one person,” it is vital “to lead a national citizens’ effort to hold Washington accountable [and] re-center the health care debate around doctors and patients.”
He is not so naïve as to think everyone will believe in his good intentions. On the contrary, he acknowledged that some will see his efforts to replace Obamacare as just another opportunity to criticize President Obama. But this isn’t about President Obama. In fact, he declared, it is bigger than Obama and Obamacare. “This is about much more than Obamacare. It’s about helping to ensure that Americans of every background have the opportunity to live longer, happier and more independent lives with more freedom and more choice,” Carson said.
So why is finding real solutions to the real problems of health and wholeness necessary? Why is “uprooting” the disaster that is Obamacare a priority? Simply put, we must learn from history and not put our faith in “centralized bureaucracy,” he asserted. We must put our faith in “free individuals” instead. He continued:
Every step in the direction of centralization is a step away from personalization. I steadfastly believe that no centralized bureaucracy and no politician–Republican or Democrat–should ever get in the way of decisions best made by patients, families and doctors.
Furthermore, he said, we are a nation of individuals with individual needs, which is why Obamacare has bigger problems than a website that won’t work. “Top-down cookie-cutter solutions simply will not work,” he said. “Ultimately, they increase costs and decrease freedom of choice.”
Dr. Carson has given himself to Save Our Healthcare Project because he recognizes that identifying problems isn’t enough. Health care requires solutions.
“This is a massive undertaking, and it will be tough,” Carson confessed. “But when I look into the eyes of someone such as T.J. in Missouri, I know there are much tougher things to confront in this world.”
Nothing brings clarity like seeing a former patient again–one who was not supposed to live to see two, much less twenty-one. And nothing turns up the fire in the belly to do what’s right for the well-being of people like the hope of hearing more of these success stories.
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