Eureka! A Better Health Care System

The federal government has no power based on our Constitution to redistribute wealth and provide health care for some while taking property from others. Nor do they have the power to take from all and allocate health care out as they deem fit. Both of which are part of the current proposal.

I propose an alternative that is much more in line with what our founding Fathers could support AND smarter relative to the current Health Care plan.

What the federal government can do. 1) insure free interstate commerce and 2) protect against Fraud

What follows is 4 simple steps to improve the system we have today.

1) Health care insurance must be borderless within the US. No restrictions on offering insurance across State Lines. That does not exist today. In fact, government regulations not only forbids it, but create extra costs through a bureaucratic nightmare of paper work for the insurance companies. Any insurance company can offer a plan, in any state to any person.

2) Protect against fraud by making health insurance a 1 page, no foot noted document. Language simplification and definition are key to protecting against fraud. This is similar to what is already done in auto insurance. Universal definition such as the meaning of WHOLE, PREVENTATIVE, CATASTROPHIC, etc are exactly the same in coverage no matter who is covered or where. Along this an alla cart system would be developed with standard definition of coverage whereas people could pick and choose coverage depending upon their specific need without confusion. Finally, payment simplification must be created. Standardization is the key and it protects from Fraud. Most of the complication has not come from insurance companies but rather differing state and federal laws.

3) Eliminate Medicare and Medicaid as we know them today. The overwhelming cost of these programs are crippling our government. Making everyone take some level of individual responsibility for their health puts the power back with the individual and increase its importance relative to sneekers or car payments. This idea will bring out the fear and racist mongers who would say that the poor can not afford insurance. That is bull dung. Flooding the market with another 30 million Americans shopping for health insurance would lower everyones premiums and the most poor could afford an appropriate level of coverage, especially if the number of insurance companies competing for that business explodes. The second fear tactic would be about those with pre-existing conditions. This would be addressed with one semi intrusive government program. Incentivize insurance companies to accept pre-existing conditions with tax breaks for having a certain percentage of those policies accepted each year. Also, you incentivize Hospitals with similar tax breaks with their expenditures on under insured patients. Finally, the last scare tactic is concerning the elderly, where most of the expenses in the system takes place. This would be addressed as above, but would add one extra safety net similar to what we do with unemployment. If a person over the age of 70 has a difficult time finding appropriate coverage for health care/drug insurance AND they can show a need based on fixed income, there could be an option where a supplemental social security payment goes directly to an insurance provider. I could make a hundred arguments how the free market would address all the fear mongering, but we are so far away from a free market, I think compromise is necessary to ease all the fear mongering. Eliminating the medicaid/medicare bureaucracy would hugely reduce the cost of health care.

4) Protecting American citizens from Bureaucracy and Pre-existing conditions with multi-year term medical policies with second opinion appeals on denied care. Opening up insurance policies to be multi-year similar to Term Life Policies protects consumers from changing health conditions. Addomg a second opinion appeal puts medical care in the hands of the patient and doctors. If a patient finds 2 non-related physicians to independently recommend the same course of treatment, insurance denials are reversed. It is the insurance companies responsibility to understand medicine, not the doctors job to understand insurance bureaucracy. The fundamental problem with our current health system is government intrusion and insurance company favoring legislation. Creating more of a free market system, puts the pressure back on the business to adjust to the market, not the other way around as it is today.

These 4 simple steps would improve health care for all. Sound too simple? Why not try this first, before moving towards socialized medicine?