Rep. Eric Burlison: 'Most of my colleagues are drunk on spending

the sound of a family trying to decide between a prescription refill and a tank of gas. His line about colleagues being "drunk on spending" is the most honest thing said on Capitol Hill in a long time. The man from Missouri is right that exploding premiums are eating the raise families should be getting, leaving them with nothing left for savings, a hobby, or a vacation. When the cost of staying healthy eats half your paycheck, the American Dream becomes a monthly healthcare payment.

Burlison seems to understand that the problem isn't just the premiums, it's that the dogma of the last decade has been a disaster. We tried forcing everyone into the same system and promised it would lower costs. Instead, we watched insurers merge, hospitals consolidate, and the middle class get crushed under the weight of administrative bloat. His focus on giving people real options, not just different flavors of the same heavy-handed bureaucracies, is the right direction. The free market can absolutely do a better job of caring for people if we let it.

Of course, the real resistance isn't coming from a lack of good ideas. It's coming from the fact that spending money is the only drug Congress knows how to administer. It's easier to hold a press conference about federal dollars coming to a district than it is to explain why the current system costs three times what it should.

Burlison's diagnosis is a breath of fresh air for Americans who are tired of paying more and getting less. The GOP needs to remember that the party that wins in 2026 isn't the one that talks about managing the beast, but the one that actually shows it can cut the fat and preserve the care. If we can redirect all that wasteful Washington money into the pockets of the people who earned it, we will fix healthcare *and* the economy in one swing. We will be watching to see if his colleagues are ready to sober up.