How can we fix healthcare? Have everyone purchase their own private insurance with their own money.
1) Have employers abandon providing coverage at all. Take all the money they were spending on providing insurance and give it to the workers.
2) Turn Medicare dollars over to the recipients on a monthly basis and let them buy private insurance.
3) Get rid of Medicaid and replace it with a voucher system where the government provides a voucher to anyone who qualifies for the subsidy to purchase their own insurance.
4) Allow insurance companies to operate nationally, not state-by-state.
5) Disallow group rated insurance.
Some of these items will be easier to implement than others.
Item 1 and 5 are straightforward and tied together. One reason individual rates are high is because group rates are low. If insurers abandoned group rates then individual policies would cost less. That would also mitigate some of the cost of moving from employer-paid to employee-paid insurance.
Taking Medicare and Medicaid out of the equation would also dramatically reduce insurance costs because of how those programs pay health providers. These government run programs significantly under pay for procedures versus what private insurers pay. Hospitals make up those losses by charging privately insured patients significantly more. If everyone has their own insurance it levels the cost playing field, reducing costs to private insurers.
Currently, insurers have to operate as separate corporations in each state. They have to file their rates in each state. They have to get approvals for their costs in each state. That’s just stupid. National businesses should be able to operate nationally. Why is this set up this way? It’s typical government – nothing ever goes away. Decades ago, before modern computers and communications, it may have made some sense for each state to control local rates. Well, that’s ludicrous with today’s technology and using free market principles. Let competition in the market take care of rates. Insurers can tailor their offerings to service their customers actual needs, adjusting cost-to-need.
Am I advocating that the government remove itself from healthcare? No. Government should do what government does best: oversight. Government should monitor healthcare insurers and providers to make sure they’re playing by the rules, treating customers fairly, etc. That’s what bureaucrats do best: make sure other people are doing what their supposed to.
Congress should enact laws and/or regulations to protect all parties. For instance, they could enact legislation defining pre-existing conditions, mandate certain coverages, and define rules around what happens to someone who doesn’t get insurance, etc.
By taking employers and government agencies out of the equation, we put healthcare back in the hands of patients and doctors. It will be more cost-effective and provide better healthcare for all.