The same way you insure a homeowner after his house has burned to the ground.
Great article. The focus on shifting tax policy to begin moving people away from job-related policies to individually selected policies is the key to the entire solution. That and opening up competition.
I am intrigued by the charity solution to help mitigate the cost for those with pre-existing conditions, as well.
There is an easy way to do this. Create two classifications of insurance - Limited coverage and Full coverage.
Limited does not cover pre-existing conditions
Full coverage covers pre-existing conditions
Insurance companies are required to identify which of the two types of coverage they provide and disclose to the policy purchaser and covered individual.
Done - free market takes over from there. Individuals who need full coverage can go out to the market place and find a product that works for them. Those that only need limited coverage can go to that market segment as well.
The problem isn’t that some people don’t have insurance. The problem is that some people DO have insurance. That warps the marketplace to the advantage of the insured and the disadvantage of the uninsured. It’s not really ‘insurance” it’s socialized medicine, but using “private” policies. In other words, somebody else (the uninsured) are paying for the unsubsidized benefits of the insured.
For people with pre-existing conditions the perfect solution is to ban together in a special purpose co-op. Let’s say you have type 9 hemophilia. What makes the treatments cost upwards of a million dollars a year (based on your weight) is that the government got involved. The government pays somebody to process all the unused but too old blood bank blood into the necessary clotting agent. There are NO cost controls. The business is 100% profit because there is no supply demand curve. There is no competition. (The initial blood is free as it would otherwise be thrown away.) A member run co-op could do the same processing for a fraction of the cost and minimum profit.
Should be repeated loud and often!!
“Like a hammer that sees every problem as a nail, many politicians think the solution to every problem is legislation that erodes our liberties. Instead, they should consider how such controls contribute to these problems, and how free markets provide solutions.”