On Wednesday morning, former GOP Senator Tom Coburn was asked on Morning Joe whether our political leaders will be able to cobble together something to fix the health care crisis. "Here's what's important: you're never going to solve health care until you have real competition out there. If you had real competition, where people could see what things costs, you could lower the price of health care 30% tomorrow. We've proven that. We know that."  

Coburn, who is a medical doctor, used the example of MRIs. "There are things out there that will direct people to the cheapest MRI, to give you the best deal," he said. "Americans know how to shop for things." When Joe Scarborough asked more directly about the MRIs, former Senator Coburn came out with a rather surprising idea. "Go look at Amish fathers," he said.

"They buy the health care for about a third of what you pay because they go and find the best price. They go and work a deal and they actually are paying for it. Therefore they buy great quality at a lower price. All we need to do is copy what they are doing and we can solve our problems and we can reward excellence, which we should be because if you have a price but you're better, you'll get a better price. If you're worse, people won't come to you, that's the other problem."

When he was in Washington, Coburn developed a strong reputation for calling out wasteful spending in Washington DC, on both sides of the aisle (he had a popular publication called Wastebook that documented all of the government's fiscal wrongdoings). Perhaps his Amish suggestion -- which is really a provocative way to suggest letting the market determine prices -- can pick up some momentum now that it seems that both sides are scrambling for a solution.

Watch the exchange below: