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How do you propose this will work? I personally think that a free market healthcare approach makes a lot of assumptions about how the market and it's participants will behave but I'm more than willing to listen to it's proponents.
How will this system operate?
How will people afford expensive procedures?
Do you really think it is a good idea to get rid of most or all licensing and regulating bodies?
Again...I'm just curious and I would like a real explanation as to how a truly "free market" type of healthcare addresses the issues that we see today. How does it address cost primarily.
Frist all insurance be co-insurance. We get rid of HMO PPO etc. type plans with their co-pays etc.
That way every single person understands the actual cost of going to the Dr.
Plans would have some amount of from 60% covered by the insurance company up to 90 or 95 depending on what you want to buy.
Then you have your deductible, insured people would be able to buy that down, then you would have your total max out of pocket.
on the Dr. side, all costs would need a "price tag". In other words, you should be able to know what any dr charges for a simple dr. visit. You would know what is charged for blood draws and tests. How much an MRI costs and that way people can shop those numbers around.
If you do this, you put the cost of healthcare back into the equation and every single person becomes a throttle on the cost of healthcare. The main reason why costs have skyrocketed is because no one knows the actual cost of going to the Dr. everyone thinks they have $20 copay. Etc. that makes no sense at all.
For low income people, you could have programs that help them recoup these costs either by reimbursement or some kind of health savings account similar to the food stamp program where funds would be available to them but they would still have greater control over the costs of care.
I really think this approach would get us to a place where we could have some universal coverage at a fraction of the current costs and it would use the free market to drive down the cost of healthcare while driving up the quality of care.
We have not had a free market approach to HC since at least the 1960’s and maybe before that.
Frist all insurance be co-insurance. We get rid of HMO PPO etc. type plans with their co-pays etc.
That way every single person understands the actual cost of going to the Dr.
Plans would have some amount of from 60% covered by the insurance company up to 90 or 95 depending on what you want to buy.
Then you have your deductible, insured people would be able to buy that down, then you would have your total max out of pocket.
on the Dr. side, all costs would need a "price tag". In other words, you should be able to know what any dr charges for a simple dr. visit. You would know what is charged for blood draws and tests. How much an MRI costs and that way people can shop those numbers around.
If you do this, you put the cost of healthcare back into the equation and every single person becomes a throttle on the cost of healthcare. The main reason why costs have skyrocketed is because no one knows the actual cost of going to the Dr. everyone thinks they have $20 copay. Etc. that makes no sense at all.
For low income people, you could have programs that help them recoup these costs either by reimbursement or some kind of health savings account similar to the food stamp program where funds would be available to them but they would still have greater control over the costs of care.
I really think this approach would get us to a place where we could have some universal coverage at a fraction of the current costs and it would use the free market to drive down the cost of healthcare while driving up the quality of care.
We have not had a free market approach to HC since at least the 1960’s and maybe before that.
How about larger procedures for the poor? Hypothetically.....a poorer person comes into the ER with a heart attack or stroke like symptoms. They are immediately taken to surgery and have whatever procedure the doctor sees fit...whether it be open-heart surgery or the implementation of a cerebral stint to open a clot......these procedures are anywhere from 50-100k excluding the hospital stay and recovery.
How do they pay? If they can't...who absorbs the cost? In this situation, they often don't have the ability to "shop around" for a cheap, life-saving procedure.
Regarding expensive procedures: ask yourself first what makes them so expensive.
The insurance.
Once upon a time in America, insurance was only used to cover hospitalization and chronic illness and even then it was 80/20 where people had to pay up front and get reimbursed.
So of course people shopped around and knew the total cost before committing.
You chose what hospital to have your baby in based on the costs because you had to fork out 20% and wait for reimbursement.
Not today..$15 is what people worry about. They have no idea or care what the true cost is because "insurance takes care of it".
When an industry gets subsidized nothing good comes out of it..NOTHING.
The Miami Herald recently reported, insurers could deny coverage for patients with “diabetes, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, quadriplegia, Parkinson’s disease and AIDS/HIV.” Moreover, “some insurers will automatically reject applicants who are using certain prescription drugs. Wellpoint denies anyone who within the past year has taken Abilify and Zyprexa for mental disorders as well as Neupogen, which is used to treat the side effects of chemotherapy. Vista lists the anticoagulant Warfarin and the pain medication Oxycontin. Both companies list insulin.”
And why not? Competition without meaningful regulations incentivizes companies to only offer insurance to the healthiest Americans. How else could they beat the insurer across the street? Offering coverage to sicker Americans would attract a sicker pool of enrollees and serve as a competitive disadvantage. In fact, free market health care fits the definition of a failed market. A market fails if:
1. Monopoly — occurs if a single buyer or seller can exert significant influence over prices or output: In health care, “insurer and hospital markets are increasingly dominated by large insurers and provider systems.” “The increased concentration has made it difficult for the nation to reap the benefits usually associated with competitive markets.”
2. Negative Externalities — occur if the market does not take into account the impact of an economic activity on outsiders: In the ‘wild west’ environment of the individual health market place, companies leave the sickest patients without coverage. Health care costs increase for everyone when patients are forced to forgo early and appropriate care or visit the emergency room once a condition becomes unbearable.
3. Asymmetric Information — occurs when one party has more or better information than the other party: Americans looking for coverage in the individual market have no way of comparing different policies or rarely know what the plans actually cover.
Free Market health proposals double-down on this broken marketplace. They: 1) eliminate the employer tax exemption for health benefits, 2) provide everyone with a refundable tax credit to go out and purchase individual coverage, and 3) loosen the already lax insurer regulations. The results are predictable. Not only will Americans with pre-existing conditions go without coverage — or, at best, be offered very expensive plans — but as healthy Americans with bare-bones policies fall ill, they’ll discover that their insurer has little enthusiasm for paying claims.
Well we don't have to worry about what private citizens want to propose.
We have Obamacare where everyone in America gets insurance whether or not they want it or can afford it.
Utopia is having a health insurance card.
Well we don't have to worry about what private citizens want to propose.
We have Obamacare where everyone in America gets insurance whether or not they want it or can afford it.
Utopia is having a health insurance card.
Do you really see it as a negative that all people can have insurance or access to healthcare that won't bankrupt them?
How about larger procedures for the poor? Hypothetically.....a poorer person comes into the ER with a heart attack or stroke like symptoms. They are immediately taken to surgery and have whatever procedure the doctor sees fit...whether it be open-heart surgery or the implementation of a cerebral stint to open a clot......these procedures are anywhere from 50-100k excluding the hospital stay and recovery.
How do they pay? If they can't...who absorbs the cost? In this situation, they often don't have the ability to "shop around" for a cheap, life-saving procedure.
The Obama death panels will deny the procedure if the cost cannot be recouped during the remaining life expectancy of the patient based on their economic condition and age. You don't throw good money after bad.
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You don't throw good money after bad.
