I have criticized Obamacare on Constitutional, moral, and economic grounds. However, I am often asked about the alternatives. I’ll discuss 4 options here, although the possibilities are endless:<\/p>\n
1.Single payer. Everyone pays more in taxes and the federal government provides every American with insurance. Personal control over health care decisions would erode under such a system and rationing would be necessary to contain costs. Support for a single payer plan is not strong, so we’ve move to the next option.<\/em><\/p>\n 2. Do nothing. Problems aside, the current system isn’t “broken” as the left often depicts. Most Americans have insurance and most who do not either choose not to or are eligible for federal assistance. Non-payers are a problem and the rest of us must pick up the tab to some extent. Most of us have a number of treatment and physician choices, and the U.S. still provides the best treatment in the world. While most Americans want to do something about the current system, a lack of agreement can result in retention of the status quo. This is not the worst alternative.<\/em><\/p>\n 3. Market-oriented reforms. For example, consumers can be permitted to purchase health insurance across state lines would make the market more competitive. Health care savings accounts allow us to set aside money from each paycheck tax-free<\/em> and draw from the account when we need it.\u00a0Giving everyone a tax break for health insurance premiums–not just those to go through their employers–can encourage consumers to buy their own policies when their company-sponsored plans don’t meet their needs. Proposals such as these improve the current system but they don’t address the core problem of overinsurance <\/em>(see #4). <\/em>Besides, the left always opposes such proposals because they still require Americans to pay for their own health care.<\/p>\n 4. End all deductions for health insurance premiums.\u00a0This might sounds odd, but overinsurance<\/em> is one of the biggest problems we face in health care. When health insurance pays your bills, physicians respond more to insurance companies than the patients. Besides, we don’t really care what a procedure really<\/em> costs or if it is necessary as long as “insurance pays for it.” As a result, the system is overused and consumers don’t demand the service and value they otherwise would if had to pay the entire bill. I’m not saying that health insurance is a bad idea, but it should be purchased to cover major expenses only.<\/p>\n Think about it this way. What if your employer provided car repair insurance that capped the amount you paid for auto maintenance to $50 per visit to the mechanic. We would no longer care how much the repair shop actually charged and we’d insist that they complete all sorts of “preventive maintenance” while the car’s in the shop. Who cares long as someone else is paying?<\/p>\n If average Americans received increased wages instead of health insurance and paid for doctor visits out-of-pocket, providers would become more competitive and value-oriented. Of course, this proposal suffers from the same problem as #3; the left won’t support it because it doesn’t require the “rich” to pay the health care bills of the “poor.”<\/p>\n There is an irony here. The left tells us that a lack of universal catastrophic<\/em> insurance is the problem, but they offer us\u00a0comprehensive<\/em> insurance covering everything from routine visits to the doctor to viagra as the solution. If catastrophic insurance is really the problem, then why not implement option #4 and <\/em>provide a universal health care benefit for standard treatment in excess of $10,000 per year to all Americans? This could be financed by a small payroll tax. Problem solved…<\/p>\n I’m not really in complete support of this proposal, but I think it has some merit and I want to call the left’s bluff. If this issue is really about protecting average Americans from financial ruin because of a medical catastrophe as they say–and not about wealth redistribution as I believe–then they should line up in favor of such a proposal. I doubt I’ll get many takers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have criticized Obamacare on Constitutional, moral, and economic grounds. However, I am often asked about the alternatives. I’ll discuss 4 options here, although the possibilities are endless: 1.Single payer. Everyone pays more in taxes and the federal government provides every American with insurance. Personal control over health care decisions would erode under such a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}