Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says government needs to get out of the health care business. "The mess we have has been created by government," Paul says. "First, creating the inflation…and also the regulations that have gone in that makes it much more expensive but the most important mistake that they made was to redirect the tax code…so individuals and small companies never had the same benefits as large companies."

Paul served as a flight surgeon in the Air Force in the 1960s, then he opened a medical practice in Texas, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. According to his campaign, Dr. Paul delivered more than 4,000 babies during his medical career.

Paul says individual patients, not government, need to be given more control. "So that they can pick and choose what type of medical care they want — alternative care, nutritional and vitamins — they should be making those choices," Paul says. "Right now we’re moving to the point where they don’t have those choices and they don’t even have the choice of their physician many times."

Paul, who is currently a congressman representing the Galveston, Texas, area, made his comments during a stop at Dordt College in Sioux Center this afternoon.