Posted on 12/14/2014 4:11:58 AM PST by Kaslin
Not as long as the law compels free treatment for those who won't pay, it won't.
Right. But that isn't competition.
All action is suspended pending the SCOTUS decision over state exchanges.
All the various topics are already addressed in the several Republican healthcare drafts languishing till the proper time. The debate is going to be over provisions offered in the various plans
Put a Mexican embassy in every Walmart with a Mexican doctor. In Mexico it costs $2 cash to get a prescription. Also include a Southwest Airlines ticket booth for the big stuff.
The best long term approach to healthcare is to start with the axiom that interference in the system might seem to make it better, but actually damages and even destroys it.
So the way out of the morass is simple, create natural incentives for people to leave it.
For example, some doctors in private practice reject Medicare and Medicaid, and also reject *insurance* for ordinary healthcare. By doing so, and insisting that patients pay with cash or check, they can offer prices that are 50% lower. And at the same time, the doctor makes *more* money. This is because they just need one person to do the paperwork, not an entire staff.
So this is a natural incentive for both doctors and patients. And the best thing government can do is *not* interfere with it. Though they *might* make it even more popular by legally streamlining it.
There should be serious consideration to forbidding insurance for routine medical care. It would benefit the vast majority of patients, and an alternative system could be devised for the minority.
Another great thing to do, that would radically increase the efficiency of the healthcare system, is to get rid of the wretched HIPAA and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.
They are both abominations and dehumanizing efforts to federalize personal information for government use. There is no conceivable legitimate reason for 35 government agencies to be able at will to wade through your health records.
In a nutshell, the restoration of Doctor-Patient privilege.
Your medical life is NOT government’s business. They need to butt out. Likewise, government has no right to keep a database of people’s DNA, unless they are convicted felon criminals. NOT their job.
Eventually, Medicare should both be decoupled from Social Security, and both should be discontinued “from the bottom up”, which means no new enrollments in either, and no more FICA taxes.
There are many other ideas out there:
The BOLD Republican Plan for Health Care
http://www.cchfreedom.org/cchf.php/852
Waivers were very popular in the late 1970s, a simple (and obvious) answer to the lawsuit crisis.
Unfortunately, by the mid-80s, courts were ruling consistently that you could not waive your right not to be mistreated.
The ACA was never intended to answer the question What is the best, least expensive way to protect healthcare in America?
Very true, there is no way to save this country unless Americans can get over one idea and that is, “The government ought to do something.” I have heard it all my life but in reality, in most cases, government really ought to do nothing except get out of the way. Programs like the laughably named “Affordable Care Act” simply should not exist because they should never have been proposed, anyone who understands how things work in the real world would never expect anything positive to arise from such a law. If anyone is surprised at how badly it is turning out he should start devoting as much time as possible to the study of human nature and try to grasp just why it is that you get more of what you reward and less of what you punish.
You nailed it.
I have to assume most of it's for a reason. But I just can't believe that so many healthy people who've led such healthy lives are that needy of medical manipulation.
Let the several states do their own thing.
“They can begin by repealing the worst features of Obamacare.”
Classic Republican response. Lets tinker around the edges with what is acceptable to our corporate masters.
Medicare is a monster, destroying everything in its path.
It certainly isn't making it easy for seniors to keep control of their bodies and make informed objective decisions.
Not quite. While it is often repeated that the "real goal" of this monstrosity was to self destruct and pave the way to single payer commie care, the people who run the world have a much different agenda, a more fascist agenda, and when all is said and done the crony insurance companies will still have the individual mandate and will still collect taxpayer money, and most of the provisions which burden larger corporations will be overturned. It is feudalism and you will be required to be a serf on Aetna's or Cigna's plantation. But you're right, it has nothing to do with healthcare.
My doctor takes cash and charges me much less if I don't involve the insurance, nor should I, since the whole point of insurance is to mitigate the expenses of health emergencies, not to pay for every little visit for annual checkups and the occasional flu or stitches. The country has gone mad, and everybody who is not an insider to the scheme is unhappy.
Far too practical a solution (though that was once widely in place and still is in many areas)! It would be deemed to damage the "Self Esteem" of those using the system, as usual, screw the people who pay taxes to support the sinking ship!
Another thing is to fight the Trial lawyers. A few days ago, I saw an ad for a law firm that if you took Viagra and got skin cancer call this number. Those trial lawyers are scum.
Get rid of health ‘insurance’...
“Add to your list a repeal of the up to thirty year patent term for drugs. Reduce it to three years with no renewal. “
Is it really 3 decades now? Seems excessive.
But with just three years, drug companies may not recoup their expenses developing the drugs. So will not be putting in the effort to develop them. There has to be a financial incentive.
“BTW most actual research into new drugs is done by academic institutions at public expense. Drug company expenses occur mostly from navigating regulatory hurdles.”
I didn’t know that. Figures though. Big government intervention is stifling many other forms of business as well.
We are becoming more fascist daily, all behind the scenes from our representatives, with the EPA, OSHA, FERC, FDA, etc.
Yeah. With the renewals they can get it is.
drug companies may not recoup their expenses developing the drugs. So will not be putting in the effort to develop them
That is what is always claimed, but there is zero evidence to support it. The truth is they are just old fashioned monopolies, just like any other. Their primary incentive is to reap economic rents. Without patents the incentive to develop new drugs would be profit, same as any other industry.
Surely a better way to approach the problem of development expense would be to simply ask why it costs so much to bring new drugs to market, instead of looking around for some pockets to pick.
Now, of course, medical research has general applicability; but that is something which the free market can provide, as it has provided. There may arguably be a Federal role in supervising medicines that move in interstate commerce; but the present level of Federal control, even there, has become excessive, and should be reexamined, from multiple perspectives.
William Flax
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