“I’d like to be the face of healthcare reform for the Republican Party,” said Madison Cawthorn, the Republican nominee for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, in an interview on Wednesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.
Madison Cawthorn called for improving health care by increasing free-market competition.
“I’ll use a simplified analogy, but I want our insurance and — our health care — to be a lot like ordering a pizza,” said Cawthorn. “In my house here in Henderson County, I have five different companies that would deliver a pizza to me at any time. That means that they’re all competing for my dollars, so they’re going to try and give me the best pizza for the lowest price as quick as they can, and that’s what I think our insurance should be like. You should be able to shop around for what you want. You should be able to know the price, and they should have to compete for our dollars.”
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Cawthorn’s website highlights his partial paralysis following a car accident in 2015 in a section broadly laying out his views on healthcare reform:
I know a fair amount about health care because I was paralyzed from the waist down in a serious car accident in 2014. I believe I’m alive today because we don’t have a single-payer system, which invariably rations care, limits choices and lowers quality.
The problem is not that the free market has failed in health care. The problem is that it has never really been tried. Again, the rules regulating health care were written in 1940’s. Since then, we’ve had third parties – insurance companies and government bureaucrats – standing between doctors and patients.
We need patient freedom, choice, competition and price transparency. That’s the best – and only – way to drive down costs.
P.J. O’Rourke had it right: If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it’s free.
Cawthorn reflected on lessons he learned and character traits he enhanced while recovering from his injuries.
“The accident obviously taught me some very serious lessons,” Cawthorn stated. “Mainly because I was kept in the hospital for a little over a year afterwards. There were just so many complications. Both my ankles were crushed. I had severe burns, My kidney was ripped off. My diaphragm ruptured. My spinal cord was damaged, T12 vertebrae, and severe internal bleeding.”
Cawthorn continued, “It was a was a hard road to come back from, but it definitely taught me perseverance and grit, but also it taught me empathy, which I think I would not have learned otherwise.”
Perseverance through adversity forges character, noted Cawthorn.
“It was definitely a period of intense growth,” said Cawthorn of the years since his accident, “and obviously that comes with discomfort [and] being uncomfortable. After the accident, I obviously believed that I would walk again. I still do believe I’ll walk again with the power of science and a loving God at some point in my life, but right now, it doesn’t look like I’ll ever be able to heal on my own.”
Cawthorn went on, “Once I realized — probably around the age of 20 — that I didn’t think I was actually going to be able to heal on my own, I got a good bit depressed. I felt as if everything I’d ever worked for my life had been ripped away from me, and I was so frustrated. … I’m wondering, ‘Who am I? Am I useless? Is there a purpose for me to be alive?'”
Cawthorn concluded with a rejection of self-pity. “I was going to continue going forward without feeling bad for myself [and] without having a pity party for myself every time I woke up. I was going to live my life to the fullest despite being in a wheelchair.”
Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
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