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How do we "fix" healthcare?

I appreciate your asking me that. I actually worked for a health care insurance company for a while, and frankly, I am appalled at the current system...I think the Dems tried to purposely ruin it with the HMO thing.

Remember the "MSA"? It was a great idea, but was limited to the self-employed...at least for the last several years. I was relatively young when it was first proposed, and I am sure it was discussed at the time...but what if employers could participate?

They are already paying, say $750 per month for a family policy for their employees (the employees pay varying amounts of this). Maybe they could offer a "catastrophic" policy with a $10,000 of $15,000 deductible for $250, per month, and then be enticed, through tax breaks, to put the other monthly monies into a tax-free medical account for the employee's family to use for day-to-day expenses. Once the employee's "account" reached the deductible amount, the employer's monthly contribution could be reduced drastically...say to $100/month (of which the employee would pay their "percentage").

The tax-free account could be allowed to grow (to discourage frivolous use), and could be taken with the employee from job to job; and might eventually be available as taxable income for retirement.

The employer would ultimately save money to the tune of several hundred dollars per month, per employee...and people would have an incentive not to run to the doctor for every ailment.

It would also get rid of the iron hand of the insurance companies' dictates, by allowing people to choose where to spend their medical dollars. It would encourage them to shop for the best care at the best price.

There might have to be some type of stop-gap coverage for the deductible until the account was built to that point...but that would be up to the employee to pay..or not. And, HMO's (and that type of full coverage) would have to be done away with entirely.

I'm tired, and this is a rambling reply, I know...just some of my thoughts. This would help to alleviate the concerns of some of the small business people, and those folks who are paying entirely too much for insurance. This issue first became of interest to me when I was an exec at a manufacturing company. We had 250 employees, and the insurance bill that came in January of 2001 (for the entire year) was 1.2 million...DOLLARS. This is killing our businesses. As far as the uninsured; we already have programs in place for most of them...but we should go back to refusing some services.

I absolutely agree with your logic on healthcare and I do think it could be a solution - but only part of a solution. The drawbacks of course is all those people out there who cannot hold on to a dime for anything - some could but don't - some just can't - not enough money. That is where that plan would fall short. You and I are able to put the deductible aside in savings for that medical rainy day. We'd be taken care of and it makes perfect sense to me. As I'm talking about it here - I'm thinking it does sound a little like someone was planning another type of welfare system when developing HMO's (the dems?). I remember the days when we had the good ole 80/20 plans with a deductible and you didn't hear of any problems with our healthcare in this country then. But then I also remember not having the money at the time for that deductible or the 20 percent. I was just too poor at the time. Given a life-threatening situation, death would have been the only thing I could afford.

I'd also like to mention, I remember reading an article on how those 80/20 plans were making money and holding up the HMO's that were losing money hand over fist. We saw the bigger picture way back then and look at where it has been allowed to take us. What were we thinking?

Going back to these 80/20 plans with a deductible would only work for some of us. To be fair, we'd have to figure out something for the rest of the citizens who just can't do it. I like the sound of your plan. It's on the right track. Try to create what we had in the past. You know the days when we actually knew what a hospital room cost and could realistically face it?