PHOTO BY MIKE MERTES, AZ BIG MEDIA
PAUL JOHNSON: “My view of the presidential race is that it doesn’t matter anymore,” says the former mayor of Phoenix. “Where I have great hope and optimism is what’s happening outside the political system. Our ability to invent and have the human mind create and develop a product gives me great hope for where we are going.” efficient and affordable route for treatment – without sacrificing quality. In many cases, we even improve the quality of care. Most healthcare companies are filled with waste, administrative burdens, inefficient processes and unnecessarily high procedure rates due to unreasonable requirements from traditional, status quo insurance agencies. Redirect Health is different. We eliminate waste and unnecessary administration so we don’t have to charge more. We redirect care through the most efficient means possible. For instance, certain procedures that cost thousands of dollars in a hospital can actually be performed in select clinics for a small fraction of the cost and with the exact same quality. AB: How do you think Redirect Health will change the healthcare industry? PJ: It already is changing the industry. It starts by understanding that everything we are being told about Obamacare is not true. People are utilizing Obamacare as a means to move their product. That’s what is happening. Here’s an example: A stucco company is told it has 100 employees and only five were insured last year and now it has to offer 100 percent of them insurance this year and it can get a policy for $500 per person and if the company doesn’t buy the policy, it won’t be in compliance. Nothing about that statement is true, but it’s being told to employers all the time. AB: So what’s the truth? PJ: Companies have to meet minimal essential care standards to
get out of the $2,000 penalty. They have to file the forms. If companies do those two things, they are 90 percent of the way there. Companies do not have to have the strategy of buying health insurance. That’s not what the law did. It allowed for a self-insurance model. AB: How important are innovative companies like Redirect Health to growing the economy? PJ: One of the greatest strengths in the United States is weird people. We exalt weird people. We allow them to do miraculous things. Over time, we take their inventions and products and create revenue and tax revenue from it that creates the ability to educate a whole new group of weird people — Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and others. The real challenge is when people begin to believe that you can fix the problems by making everyone equal and getting rid of the gap. When that happens, they quit creating, they quit innovating. AB: Do you miss politics? PJ: When I left politics after I lost the governor’s race, I had to think about what I wanted in my life and what was important to me. I came to the conclusion that it didn’t have to be politics. I realized what was important to me and it became my mantra: I needed to think the unthinkable. I needed to change the world. And I needed to have a blast. Redirect Health is a group of likeminded people who are thinking way beyond the unthinkable, they are trying to change the world and they are a fun group of people to be around. AB | May - June 2016
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