Radical Centrist

Proposal to fix Healthcare System

From what I understand, Hillary's plan is not modeled on the Canadian system. Her original effort in 1993 probably was.

Anyway you cut it, healthcare is expensive and subject to rationing. Either through waiting lines or by ability to pay.

My son, Brian worked in admitting at a major research hospital for a couple of years. He says, what's the big deal about universal coverage, we have it already. By law, (at least in Ohio) when someone comes into the emergency room they can't be turned away, regardless of the ability to pay. Brian says that the hospital collected only about 8% of billing to uninsured. Hmmm, who pays? The hospital makes it up somewhere. ergo, someone pays including government, businesses, and folks who pay for insurance.

I sold health insurance for a year before returning to corporate life in 1989. It was a lot cheaper then than now. It's not hard to understand why so many people, who don't work for a major corporation who buys it for them, don't have insurance. Consider if a person has little or no net worth, he has no incentive to spend money to protect it. Especially when to get meaningful coverage, it could cost 30% to 50% of his annual take home. Don't think so? Consider a self employed person making $25.00 per hour, without benefits. Working full time that comes out to around $50,000 per year. What's his take home? First deduct 16% for FICA leaving $42,000. Income tax might take another $6,000 leaving $36,000. With a family of four, this person might pay as much as $1,000 per month or $12,000 per year in insurance premiums which would be 33% of after tax income. In truth, I haven't checked the current FICA rates or insurance rates but I think I'm in the ball park. Now suppose this person makes only $20.00 per hour....

OK, now suppose that he spends the money for insurance. One of his kids has an accident and they go to an emergency care center. Do you take our insurance, they ask? Yes we do, is the answer after looking it up. So treatment is performed. Three weeks later they get a separate bill from the Doctor at the clinic for his service. It turns out that the doc is not in the insurance company's network, and he isn't obliged to accept the out-of-network payment the insurance company allows. (This happened to Joanne, and she has great insurance through the State Teacher's Retirement System.)

The Canadian system is not the panacea that M Moore would have us believe. However, my experience with our system has demonstrated that it has it's own problems.

Here's my solution

1. Require everyone to carry a basic health package and offset the cost for the low and middle income folks with tax credit. These packages should cover preventative care.

2. Require every healthcare provider that practices in the building represented by an admitting desk to accept the same insurance coverages that the facility accepts. If the provider isn't "in-network" he would be required to accept whatever out-of-network payment the insurance company allows. Let's face it, when you go to Home Depot, you don't have to negotiate separately with Ryobi for their power tools.

Ahh, but that's too simple.

posted by Campfire Talk @ 1:35 PM