Quote:
Originally Posted by MTI
How are the two disconnected? Or another way, how can you discuss one without the other?
There are measurable benefits, both economic and non-economic, for increasing the availablity of affordable healthcare to more Americans. I believe we should all agree with that notion. Lower mortality rates, increased productivity, early detection of diseases all have direct and indirect benefits socially and economically.
So, how to we get there?
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I'd support removing all (State-imposed) restrictions on competition between the insurance companies. Let every company offer policies in every state. I think I'd like to see them use a single pool of all members rather than so many groups for policies--but I can be swayed on that. Using a single pool would seem to make the rates a lot more transparent--we collected this much--we paid out this much, and our executives, investors and sales staff got this much.
I think I'd like to see some sort of two-tier coverage where individuals would pay, out-of-pocket for routine vists, ( maybe with a tax credit below a certain income), and then catastrophic coverage for the big expenses. Again, I am willing to listen to arguments on both sides of this.
There is nothing wrong with medical savings accounts where employers pay a % of income into a fund, and whatever the employee doesn't spend, they get to keep. You'd have to structure it so that people would not be tempted to ignore legitimate HC expenses so that they might get the cash back.