From FreedomFest: Americans Are Ready for a New Health Care Future

by Alexandra de Scheel, Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom

FreedomFest 2026 brought liberty-minded Americans to Las Vegas last week to celebrate 250 years of American independence. A renewed pride shaped this event — an honest, positive look at America's history and how Americans built the freest nation on earth. This pride came with resolve: a determination to tear down, or step around, the systems of control built to stifle that freedom.

Nowhere is this resolve more needed than in restoring the patient-centered mission of medicine.

CCHF President and Co-Founder Twila Brase took the main stage as a panelist on “Health Care in America.” Health economist John Goodman — president of the Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research — moderated. Her fellow panelists were Andrew Langer, president of the Institute for Liberty, and Andy Schoonover, founder and CEO of CrowdHealth.

The panelists discussed leaving the third-party payment system — where employers, corporate health plans, and government agencies pay the bills and control the decisions — completely behind.

Twila laid out her vision for a parallel system of health care built on CCHF’s 3-C Solution: Cash, Catastrophic Coverage, and Charity. Patients pay cash for everyday care, carry true insurance for major medical events, and rely on charity to fill the gaps. The audience’s enthusiastic applause confirmed what we’ve known for years: Americans are ready for something better.

Earlier that same day, Twila led a breakout session on artificial intelligence (AI) in the exam room — the ambient-listening technology now recording conversations between doctors and patients. Directly after the session, she signed copies of her eight-time award-winning book, Big Brother in the Exam Room: The Dangerous Truth About Electronic Health Records, now in its fourth printing.

Interest carried directly from the breakout session to the CCHF booth. Attendees picked up our “Privacy Please” door hangers, a tool patients can use to push back against ambient listening in the exam room.

Three topics came up most often: artificial intelligence in health care, Medicare, and the 3-C Solution.

More Americans are recognizing that control over medical decisions, private information, and the patient-doctor relationship is central to individual freedom.

CCHF also connected with national leaders in education, media, and public policy about future opportunities to bring the message of medical freedom to new audiences. We will share more as these plans develop.

Stay tuned — exciting things are ahead.