Posted on 03/03/2017 7:19:57 AM PST by nikos1121
The first sentence of Congress' Obamacare repeal should read: "There shall be a free market in health insurance.”
Right there, I've solved the health insurance crisis for 90 percent of Americans. Unfortunately, no one can imagine what a free market in health care looks like because we haven't had one for nearly a century.
On NBC's "Meet the Press" this weekend, for example, Chuck Todd told Sen. Tom Cotton that his proposal to create affordable health care that would be widely available, "sounds good," but "do you understand why some people think that's an impossible promise to keep?”
(The "do you understand ...?" formulation is a condescension reserved only for conservatives, whose disagreement with liberals is taken as a sign of stupidity.)
Todd continued: "To make it affordable, making it wider, I mean, that just seems like -- you know, it seems like you're selling something that can't be done realistically.”
Dream Sequence: Chuck Todd on Russia's "Meet the Press" after the fall of the Soviet Union: "Do you understand why some people think that's an impossible promise to keep? To make bread affordable, making it wider, I mean, that just seems like -- you know, it seems like you're selling something that can't be done realistically.”
It turns out that, outside of a communist dictatorship, all sorts of products are affordable AND widely available! We don't need Congress to "provide" us with health care any more than we need them to "provide" us with bread. What we need is for health insurance to be available on the free market.
With lots of companies competing for your business, basic health insurance would cost about $50 a month. We know the cost because Christian groups got a waiver from Obamacare, and that's how much their insurance costs right now. (Under the law, it can't be called "insurance," but that's what it is.)
Even young, healthy people would buy insurance at that price, expanding the "risk-sharing pools" and probably bringing the cost down to $20 or $30 a month.
In a free market, there would be an endless variety of consumer-driven plans, from catastrophic care for the risk-oblivious to extravagant plans for the risk-averse.
You know -- just like every other product in America.
You should visit America sometime, Chuck! The orange juice aisle in a Texas grocery store knocked the socks off Russian president Boris Yeltsin. (Imagine how cheap a double screwdriver must be in America!)
Just as there are rows of different types of orange juice in the grocery store –- and loads of grocery stores -- there will be loads of health insurance plans and insurance companies offering them.
Americans would finally be able to buy whatever insurance plans they liked, as easily as they currently buy flat-screen TVs, cellphones and -- what's that product with the cute gecko in its commercials? I remember now! CAR INSURANCE!
Evidently, insurance is not impervious to the iron law of economics that every product sold on the free market gets better and cheaper over time.
The only complicated part of fixing health care is figuring out how to take care of the other 10 percent of Americans -- the poor, the irresponsible and the unlucky. And the only reason that is complicated is because of fraud.
Needless to say, the modern nanny state already guarantees that no one will die on the street in America. The taxpayer spends more than a trillion dollars every year on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security disability insurance so that everyone's health is taken care of, from cradle to grave.
Unfortunately, probably at least half of that sum is fraud.
Policing fraud is difficult because: (1) the bureaucrats dispensing government benefits believe there is no fraud and, if there is, it's a good thing because it redistributes income; and (2) we keep bringing in immigrants for whom fraud is a way of life. (See "Adios, America! The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole.”)
Consequently, after the first sentence establishing a free market in health insurance, the entire rest of the bill should be nothing but fraud prevention measures to ensure that only the truly deserving -- and the truly American -- are accessing taxpayer-supported health care programs.
I'd recommend sending as much as possible back to the states, and also paying bounties to anyone who exposes a fraud against Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Anyone caught committing health care fraud should get 10 years. Not in prison, in a Medicaid doctor's waiting room.
But I'm sure you guys in Congress have come up with lots of great ideas for policing fraud in the SEVEN YEARS you've had to think about it. (Hello? Is he breathing? Dammit, I'm not getting a pulse!!)
Then, Congress can start removing all the bad stuff from the U.S. Code, such as:
-- the requirement that hospitals provide "free" care to anyone who shows up (how about separate health clinics for poor people with the sniffles?);
-- the exemption of insurance companies from the antitrust laws (where all our problems began); and
-- the tax breaks only for employer-provided health insurance (viciously and arbitrarily punishing the self-employed).
The goal of "universal health care" is very simple to achieve, just as the goal of "universal wearing of clothing" seems to have been taken care of.
The government can provide for those who can't provide for themselves, but the rest of us need to be allowed to buy health insurance on the free market -- an innovation that has made America the richest, most consumer-friendly country in the world.
It's taken 50 years, but, thanks to Hillary's losing the election, we finally have liberals on the record opposing the Soviet Union. Can't all of Washington come together and end our soviet health care system?
If secondly, we had a National program that reduced obesity and improved health, the costs would come down more.
If we devoted resources to reduce certain high cost chronic diseases health care costs would go down.
In short, Trump is going to solve this one too, Folks.
This whole “ affordable healthcare crisis” is a red herring.
The problem is not the cost of insurance. The problem is cost of actual healthcare delivery. The solution is to go after the healthcare monopolies. Enforce RICO and Anti-Trust laws.
That will eliminate the problem of $20 aspirins and no price discovery until after the service is rendered. It will open up competition which will drive down prices.
No MAndates! The Federal should NEVER have the power to require anyone to buy anything! States can regulate, but the Feds need to stay out! There are many reasons that healthcare is expensive. Not the least of which is frivolous lawsuits and sky high malpractice insurance. For doctors and hospitals. Let the FREE MARKET work. Insurance companies can sell in any state and make it competitive. You don’t have to buy insurance, but if you don’t and you get sick, you pay the going rate for the uninsured. We had 70/30 coverage, but when I had a medical emergency, our insurance company pppointed out, in the small print, that the 70/30 coverage only really applied to those with which they had a contract. It is taking me a year and a half to pay off the hospital. Make sure your insurance is clear and understandable. No more sleazy tactics! MAGA and MAHGA! (The second is Make American Healthcare Great Again)
Deregulating the insurance industry will help bring insurance costs down but it will not bring down the costs of medical care.
Insurance is a financial service for managing risk, it is not medical care.
The only way to bring down the cost of medical care is to increase its availability. More doctors, more nurses, more hospitals, more clinics.
Deregulating actual medical care is what needs to happen. Anything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Ann makes it simply clear;
"We don't need Congress to "provide" us with health care any more than we need them to "provide" us with bread. What we need is for health insurance to be available on the free market."
Really, that's all there is TO it.
How many of us use E-Bay, or pick up any number of local buy/sell/swap papers or even just going on line and searching for "1956 Chevy steering box" .. ?
Because that's all insurance is, and that's all the cost of a band aid is and that's all there is to open heart surgery.
How much, Doc. ?
“Mandated” is one of the problems.
- Mandate what? half the problem with Obamacare is it _requires_ coverage for things many people either don’t need, or can/should pay out-of-pocket without increasing premiums. Do you mandate coverage of “preventative” measures which may save money later but jack up costs now? or mandate “catastrophic” coverage? Paradox is that those who can’t afford preventative measures can’t afford premiums that cover preventative measures.
- Mandates screw up “supply and demand”. Now that you’re compelling everyone to get coverage, prices can be higher because everyone WILL pay it. People (the very healthy and the very rich in particular) who don’t need it have to buy it anyway. Insurers won’t have to compete with the $0/month option of no coverage, so there won’t be that huge incentive to lower prices or provide super-cheap coverage.
Seems you’ll get the opposite results from what you expect from mandated coverage.
As for reducing obesity & improving health, that is best done by eviscerating welfare coverage for the able-bodied (stop sitting around storing calories - get a job already), and by eviscerating agricultural subsidies making calorie-laden foods so cheap (let food prices be what they should be).
Yes, I expect Trump to solve it - not by mandates & regulations, but by cutting government spending & regulation which results in bad conditions.
That's the fatal flaw in the current system.
Hmmm, last time I checked we are mandated to buy car insurance. How would you like to get rear ended by some guy who doesn’t carry insurance?
Why should your health insurance be sky high if you’re young and healthy?
Mandate everyone to get affordable health care one way or another, and the country will benefit from it.
Regarding not for profit hospitals giving aid to those who don’t have coverage? Yes, there needs to be a transition of that stopping, and it will once everyone carries insurance.
Like every other problem facing Trump, there is a common sense solution, and right here today, we’ve come up with some better answers than the Schumer Clowns.
WTF? That's exactly the premise the Obamacare monster was built on.
How about simply leave everyone alone to do what they want? Fed.gov doesn't tell everyone how and where to buy bread and meat, but Americans somehow figure out for themselves, and yet its so widely available, most Americans have a surplus of the stuff.
Deregulating the insurance industry will help bring insurance costs down but it will not bring down the costs of medical care.
Insurance is a financial service for managing risk, it is not medical care.
The only way to bring down the cost of medical care is to increase its availability. More doctors, more nurses, more hospitals, more clinics.
Deregulating actual medical care is what needs to happen. Anything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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Too bad the media and elected official don’t report the issue in those terms. The healthcare industry is grossly over regulated.
I disagree with you. Give the user the ability to shop for care, and the costs will come way down.
Why should an MRI scan cost $1400 at one place and only $400 at another? Why should a cardiac cath be $5K here and $2K there?
Consumers will bring the costs down quickly in a free market.
That's why we have no-fault insurance.
I agree with you. Should be left up to the states.
Make it affordable, and a person would be stupid not to have it. I agree free market will work, but we’re mandated to pay taxes. If we weren’t only a few people would be paying to run this country.
I’m for a user tax. It seems unfair to tax people for making money. Have a user tax, and might keep people with no money from buying the big screen tv on credit, and get them to go get a job.
That reimburses you the minimum.
If everyone was mandated to have health insurance, it wouldn’t be a free market. It would be a government mandate, the ultimate in interference of a free market, and of freedom in general.
$50 a month isn’t entirely accurate, at least not in my case. We are members of a Christian healthcare cooperative. We pay about $100 per person. This doesn’t cover any doctors visits or drugs, however we have been very pleased with coverage of medical bills. A $20,000 hospital bill was paid in full, no deductible. I believe the best thing for healthcare would be up-front, transparent pricing. A patient should know exactly how much he will pay anybody who walks into his room and have the right to refuse service. As it is, a bill for a hospital stay is such a murky mess of minute details, indiscernible to anybody but an insurance professional. We have received bills MONTHS after receiving care. By that point we had no idea what the bill was for. Also, the healthcare providers should be required to provide a FULL and FINAL bill upon discharge.
Yes - the obstacle being that these monopolies are giant political contributors, with many bought-and-paid for politicians from both parties in their pockets. Trump's DOJ can try to enforce existing anti-trust law against them, but the screaming from his "Republican allies" is going to be epic.
She is right. With heath shares and medical savings accounts, we can get costs down to market costs. There will be $20 clinics popping up. They will be like fast food restaurants and they will make a ton of money.
If we had complete transparency in the cost of health care, the cost would plummet. Think about this: I don’t know anyone who buys food, clothing, housing, consumer goods, electronics, etc., without knowing the price in advance; yet most people who buy health care have no freaking clue as to cost other than the amount of their deductible because (a) health care providers are not required to provide a price list for services; and (b) the consumer has no incentive to comparative shop because the deductible is the same regardless of the actual price.
The solution is simple: First, all health care providers, including pharmacies, must provide the price for their goods and services, in plain English, upon demand and prior to providing the health care.
Second, all health insurance policies must have a deductible that is a percentage of the agreed price for the health care (as opposed to a flat fee) or require the consumer to pay the entire cost up front with the insurance provider to reimburse a percentage of that cost within 30 days. This will encourage consumers to comparative shop for the best price for health care and create price competition among health care providers.
Third, prohibit insurance providers and health care providers from negotiating a fixed price for health care services among all health care providers is a geographical area or specialty. Although they can negotiate a maximum price for good and services, health care providers would be free to charge any price below the negotiated max. This last point is important because under many insurance plans, the health care providers warrant to the insurance providers that they will not charge any patient less than the negotiated rate — even “cash” patients who are not covered under the plan. As a result, patients and health car providers are unable to negotiate a “free market price” for the health care services.
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