In response to this post, commenter Groetzinger asks the following question: “If you believe [the health care problem] is fixable what is the fix?”
Well, if I were appointed Grand Imperial Poobah for Health Care and Bottle Washing, here’s what I would do:
Decouple employment from health care by eliminating the tax advantage that exists for employer-provided health insurance.
Create a national health insurance market by knocking down the state-imposed barriers that prevent people from buying insurance across state lines.
Encourage the spread of HSAs that incentivize consumers to economize on unnecessary medical expenditures.
Reform Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP by moving the whole system to a market-based model similar to the Medicare Advantage program.
Pass nationwide tort reform to reduce the huge number of unnecessary tests and procedures that now result from defensive medicine.
Remove the stealth price controls (e.g. MS-DRG, APC, RBRVS) that have gradually been imposed on the system by the federal government.
Repeal EMTALA, HIPAA, and all other federal statutes that add huge costs but no real value to the health care system.
Eliminate all state and federal barriers (e.g. certificate of need statutes) to provider entry into the market.
Eliminate all state and federal barriers (e.g. the Stark law) to provider combination and competition.
Allow all hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers to charge what the market will bear.
Having thus cured the health care crisis, I would move on to world hunger and world peace. Then I’d go to lunch.
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Let me know if any of the congressional or presidential campaigns contact you with this (/end sarcasm).
I think all of the above is great–I’d add some positive incentives to encourage private charity by health providers (i.e. tax breaks for doctors who treat indigent patients for free) to the list, but it’s a better start than we’ll hear from anyone running for office.
Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 9:28 pm ¶More of a plan then what has been offered.Still some cracks.But there is always things that need to be worked out.
Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 8:48 am ¶Before Catron got through even half of this to do list, he wound find himself dragged to a boiler room in an unknown building by insurance company goons and faced with an ultimatum: either back off or enjoy watching this industrial drill find its way through his cranium. That Warren Buffet may look like a kindly old man, but this appearance is just a well-cultivated facade that veils the ruthless insurance thug within. Or maybe John Edwards and his dangerous crew of litigator hooligans would beat the insurance thugs to the scene.
OK, this is bad satire, but you get the point. Cold. Day. In. Hell.
Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 11:08 am ¶Not too shabby!
Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 11:53 am ¶I like it! It doesn’t start with “universal, government sponsored healthcare.”
I say send it on to the candidates to freshen up their idea pot…
By the way, what’s for lunch?
Posted 13 Jun 2008 at 6:41 am ¶“By the way, what’s for lunch?”
Oh, I thought I’d dine on my usual widows and orphans. Probably some fried puppies for desert.
Posted 13 Jun 2008 at 9:54 am ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
How David Catron would fix health care…
That all looks good to me….
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