As congressional Republicans attempt another health care bill, U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner shared his views last week with The Gazette’s editorial board in a meeting that also touched on North Korea, tax reform, trade, the Bureau of Land Management and more.

Gardner agreed with our concern that Republican and Democratic approaches to health care reform have had little to do with care and much to do with regulation and distribution of insurance.

Board members told Gardner true reform would flood the market with doctors, nurses, physicians’ assistants, nurse practitioners, hospitals and clinics in strip malls. It would create a surplus of care, in which the industry competes for patients.

“Right. That’s exactly right. We need to be able to have a marketplace,” said Gardner, R-Colo.

The senator believes technological entrepreneurs will begin playing a bigger role in creating a market less about insurance and more about competitive pricing and access. He told of a company in Chicago that finds and sells medical appointment cancellations the way travel websites sell good deals on hotel rooms and air fares.

“So, say I’ve got an MRI scheduled in three weeks at Memorial for $3,000,” Gardner explained. “Suddenly an appointment is canceled at Bob’s MRI clinic this afternoon and this app offers it for $2,000, because the clinic wants to fill the cancellation. The insurance company says ‘God bless you,’ and is happy to pay it. Everyone wins.”

Gardner believes telemedicine will become a growing part of health care, as entrepreneurs capitalize on a system that remains too expensive and inaccessible for millions. Telemedicine, a fledgling concept, facilitates patient/doctor meetings by computer for routine matters.

It eliminates costs associated with in-person visits. Gardner told of a telemedicine experiment in Grand Junction that saved nearly $900,000 at St. Mary’s Medical Center, mostly by cutting down on needless emergency room visits.

On tax reform, Gardner told us he looks forward to a program that consolidates brackets, lowers rates and flattens the code.

“It would allow people to invest, and keep more money in their pockets and in their businesses,” Gardner said. “That is one of the best economic growth opportunities we could pursue. Can we get it out of one house by August? Perhaps. And hopefully by the end of the year we can have it agreed upon by the House and the Senate, and then an infrastructure program that could parallel the tax package.”

Gardner hopes for a reduction in business regulations worth $65 billion to the economy.

“One new Supreme Court justice, health care reform, tax cuts and infrastructure. That would be a really good year,” he said.

Although he supports Trump on a number of key issues, Gardner is a free trader concerned about Trump’s threats of protectionism and destruction of foreign trade deals.

“The Korea free trade agreement passed in 2011, and an estimated 5,000 jobs resulted (in Colorado),” Gardner said. He believes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump withdrew from in January, could have created hundreds of thousands of trade-related jobs in Colorado.

As an influential member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gardner sponsored and wrote the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act in 2016.

“Everything the president is doing in regards to North Korea was authorized by my bill,” Gardner said, adding he is pleased with many of the actions the administration is taking. “But we have to do more to force China to act. China holds the keys to stopping the nuclearization of North Korea. Ninety percent of the economy and most of their petroleum is controlled by China. You do it with diplomatic pressure, economic pressure, by shaming the regime, you do it by sanctioning companies and other entities around the globe that are complicit, and you do it by shutting down avenues for revenue.”

On the home front, Gardner is working diligently to try moving the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management from Washington, D.C., to Grand Junction. He is dead serious and committed to the idea.

“There are nearly 250 million acres of BLM land and 99.9 percent of it is west of the Mississippi River,” Gardner said. “Of 9,000 BLM employees, only 400 are in the BLM office in D.C. Let’s put them to Grand Junction, where 76 percent of Mesa County is public land.”

We applaud most of what Gardner is working toward, and this much is clear. He is a high-energy, fast-moving, well-connected player in Washington with few limits on his future.

The Gazette Editorial Board