1. Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
2. Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
3. Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
4. Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
5. Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
6. Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
7. Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html
Government = Reduced costs? Uh.. that’s never happened
To relegate insurance companies to the role of non-profit would be impossible in a free society.
The only people who we’re comfortable allowing to take loss in profit–is the American Taxpayer.
They do such a great job running the post office, why not let them screw up health care?
It is not about Health Care or costs it is all about CONTROL of the American People. Liberal thinking says we are all failures and need to rely on Govt. The rest of America says get out of our way and we can decide.
They believe that,because they are MORONS.
I would love to give a better answer,but it really is that simple.
Anyone,seriously name one time the Government ever made something more efficient,or more affordable.They haven’t,not once.In fact,if you look at the cost to Companies of ensuring compliance with Government Regulations,it soon becomes clear that Govt is a big part of the Problem.
RWE
I don’t think anyone believes government health care will be cheaper – in fact most people I know realize it will go up.
The issue is that everyone will be covered this way…..now the level of coverage and quality of care that everyone will get is another story..
Yes, I totally agree.
I think that we should get rid of all the fat, sick, and old people; that will really reduce costs.
becuase as Yuri puts it they are contaminated with leftist ideas!
watch Yuri Bezmenov ex-KGB intelligence officer spill his guts on what the KGB did to us (slow indoctrination) of the masses here in the USA to turn this nation against itself….a brilliant move to destroy us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlpODYhnPEo
Yuri even describes what is going on by the left against the demonstrators expressing they view against the health system…the ridiculing of them since socialists like Obama and his liberal pals out there do NOT like dissent or free expression… and he did this interview over 20 years ago!!!
and Obama and his pals are the resulting individuals of it!
I think these people are those who have no health coverage. They are used to the government supplying everything from food stamps to housing to public transportation. Now it has been brought to their attention that there is such a thing as health care and they want it now. And where does everything come from? The government!! YAY.
Why anyone thinks the government would run it better is a mystery to me.
I’m for 1, I pay for mine with post tax dollars, its not a gift from my company.
2, Insurance companies already do this, they get around state laws by calling themselves assurance, discounts etc. Problem is that they can also be immune from state oversight, and if something goes wrong, your state insurance board can’t help you.
3, People have various tiers they can access now, but insurance companies have tried to cut costs on the backs of needed care, things like no reconstructive breasts after mastectomies, or drive-by deliveries which led to an increase in infections and blood loss had to be legislated, when put to the wall, the insurance companies have shown a willingness to put profit ahead of the health of the people who pay them.
4 Tort reform isn’t a big deal, comprising less than one dollar of the overall costs per person. Again, exempting people of responsibility isn’t a great way to do things, where is the incentive not to use the doctor with the known alcohol problem? Why should a child whose oxygen was cut off leaving them permanently in need of full time care for the rest of their lives, have to be a drain on the innocent parents?
6.Medicare is a case of more elderly die or become ill, no matter what. The insurance pool is composed of those who are more prone to illness and death.
If you really want to get into reforming Medicare, you make the pool bigger, not smaller and when you are talking over 65 years of age the only way to do that is to take in younger people.
7. Its nice to ask people to give tax deductible donations, but its not a dependable source of income, ask any charity, and in tough times when its needed more, is exactly the times when people pass on it.
Most people aren’t going to benefit all that much from tax deductions that only save them what they spend.
The reduced costs would be seen in less paperwork and no need for profits, and the ability to buy in bulk. Single payer is the best way to cut costs, but its not really being considered.
There is also the fallacy of big business being run so well. Look at AIG, still sending its execs on luxury trips after taking our money, or the auto industry, or the airlines, or trains, how about that banking, hedge fund, stock market swindles?
Sorry, government may not be great, but neither is the way businesses are run.
I like your ideas. Miracles can happen.
18,000,000,000 dollars profit add anther 2,000,000,000 in overinflated salaries and bonuses (big dollars for denying treatments) that’s over 20,000,000,000 in savings. When has your health insurance ever gone down? GWB gave away some of the largest tax cuts billions of dollars to pharm and health care how muck did your policy go down? To assume that repealing state laws would lower cost is a leap. Its not any cheaper in any state so that point is mute.Repeal mandated coverage the insurance companies would like that. Do you think they would cover more? IF so why don’t they do that now? To think that removing a mandated coverage would mean that you would get more coverage is insane. Tort reform is necessary the only ones that win here are the lawyers. I think that a doctor doing his best shouldn’t have his pants sued off of him for a questionable procedure, yet there needs to be a way to remove incompetent doctors.I think there pretty transparent now but I’m all for it, but I don’t see any big savings.
So all in all I don’t see you proposed reforms doing much in saving money or lowering cost.