Retired pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson charged on Saturday that Obamacare has taken away Americans' right to make their own healthcare decisions with their physicians.
"We took the most important thing people have, which is their healthcare, and put in the hands of bureaucrats," Carson told former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
on his Fox News program. "The VA scandal shows what happens when you put the bureaucrats between people and health care providers.
"Why do we have to make something so important in a political issue?" Carson asked. "And we have the ability to provide good healthcare for people, and it can be in between them and their healthcare providers.
"This is not necessary unless you are attempting to control the population."
Carson, 62, who retired last year as head of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, is considering a run for the White House in 2016 as a Republican.
He stressed to Huckabee that healthcare savings accounts were the best alternative to the Affordable Care Act, which is considered President Barack Obama's signature domestic legislative achievement.
"Healthcare savings accounts are important because they puts healthcare in your control, and you can decide whether you need an X-ray or birth control," Carson said. "You give people flexibility within a family."