On health care reform
Over the years I have been quick to critique our leaders (both Democrats and Republicans) and every once in a while I have proposed my own solution on topics like immigration and taxation. Many of you have asked me what ‘my’ proposal is for health care reform. I decided to take a crack at my own proposal (despite the fact that I woefully unqualified to do so).
Declare Health Insurance to be Interstate Commerce = More competition = Lower prices. The health insurance business is a complete mess. According to the AMA in 94% of metro areas around the US, a single insurer had at least 30% of the market and in 56% of the areas a single insurer had 50% or more of the market. Each state regulates the insurance industry in their state driving up costs and reducing the number of insurance providers. If Congress declared that health insurance was interstate commerce all insurance companies could do business in all 50 states. The federal government could set a single set of regulations and instantly we would have more competition. Competition will equal lower prices for consumers.
Elimination of ‘Defensive Medicine’ = $100-178 billion savings per year. Our justice system forces doctors to conduct medical treatments specifically designed to avoid lawsuits. Most of these procedures are unnecessary and expensive. Of course, this is easy to say, but harder to enact. Representative Tome Price (R-GA), a licensed surgeon, has proposed the HealthCOURT Act that creates a ’safe harbor’ for doctors that agree to embrace a set of clinical best practices. It would exempt doctors from medical malpractice claims for physicians that follow and document best-in-class standards in their treatment.
Reduce Fraud = $200 billion savings potential per year. More than 10% of all health care costs are due directly to fraud. Medicare fraud represents more than $40 billion per year. James R. Frogue’s ‘Stop Paying the Crooks‘ is a road map to various solutions that could help end the fraud in health care. Here are just a few cases of fraud that Frogue’s plans could help prevent – fraud in the news. How can you help? Sign the Center for Health Transformation’s “Stop Fraud First” petition here.
Electronic Health System = $20 billion savings potential per year. Our current paper based health system is amazingly backward. So much paper makes fraud commonplace, allows insurance companies to pay doctors and patients slower and causing unnecessary and costly medical errors. We need to move from our paper based system to an electronic health system.
Tax Reform = more coverage. Take some of the savings from electronic health records, fraud reduction and tort reform and start offering tax incentives and vouchers to Americans who can’t afford coverage. Expand tax incentives for small businesses that offer their workers health insurance (do the same for self-employed folks). Finally eliminate capital gains taxes for investments in health care companies that are searching for ways to improve health care delivery or prevent diseases like AIDS, Cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes.
Other ideas. How about repealing government mandates about what people can insure. Why must all insurance companies cover all procedures? We could save billions by allowing consumers more choice in the policies they purchase. How about making costs transparent. Consumers should know the prices of the services they are going to receive BEFORE they are delivered. There are a million more little tweaks that can make our current system better. Lets start somewhere.
Okay, this was my first stab at the problem. I spent about 30 minutes thinking about the problem and this post was the result. These are five reforms that would make a huge difference. These reforms leverage the things that are working in our system, while addressing the problems. Can we do more, sure. Lets try to do something NOW. Lets not throw out the system we have for one that is likely to fail.
