Solve It Cheap

Health care has grown so expensive because of government involvement. More government involvement can only make it worse. Do you really want the same people who run your local DMV deciding on your health care?  Do you really want the same people who pay $3,000 for a hammer taxing you to buy your health care?

The reasons it’s so expensive are numerous, but all related to government involvement. Getting government out of it entirely will cut the costs dramatically as well as support the US constitution.  There is no constitutional authority for the federal government to be involved at any level in health care.

But here’s a short list of the problems:

A) Poor and inner city hospitals are required by law to treat anyone in emergency rooms.  As a result, any bum looking to take a day off work and needing a doctor’s excuse can go to an emergency room and cost the taxpayers several thousand dollars just to get a note.  Every welfare mother with a kid who has the sniffles can go to the emergency room and cost the taxpayers a few thousand dollars just to be told to go the drug store and spend $3 on bottle of cold medicine.The hospitals and doctors don’t care. The federal government pays the bills, they get rich overcharging because the federal government only pays a portion.

B) Elderly people on Medicare and Medicaid typically don’t care about the cost because they don’t have to pay it. If money is no object, if the buyer doesn’t care what the cost it, the price of anything goes way up. And beyond that, fraud is rampant as so many bill for tests which were not necessary and tests which were never done. The government droids don’t care.  If the paperwork is there it’s paid. Nobody suffers but the taxpayers.

C) Criminals who have invaded the USA get “free” medical attention by law as well.  As do their kids who may or may not be American citizens. When they show up at the emergency room for an aspirin, instead of prison and deportation, they get thousands of tax dollars wasted on them.

D) Insurance is a little more complicated.  The problem is that those with insurance paying the bill don’t care about the price or if unnecessary tests are done or undone tests are charged for. But the insurance companies have little incentive to even watch for such things.  Higher costs translate to higher premiums and they profit in the long run either way.  Insurance companies and casinos are in EXACTLY the same business. Both know the long term odds are skewed slightly in their favor, that that tiny difference in the odds translates into large profits. Neither know or care how much or who the next jackpot will involve.  The only difference is with one you make a bet you hope you win and with the other you make a bet you hope you lose. So how do we fix that?  Allow the people to sue their insurance companies for fraud if they pay fraudulent charges knowingly. Since many such companies are owned by doctors the links and motives are clear.

E) The lawyers love medicine!  Because they control the courts, anyone with any claim, no matter how bogus, is an opportunity to enrich a lawyer and so a reason for higher insurance premiums.  This is easy to fix.  Firstly, just deny punitive damages from going to the the complainant. Real damages only. And having the loser pay the legal costs and court costs entirely would prevent the scamming lawyers from taking and filing bogus claims.

F) Health care savings accounts:  This is key to solving this problem. If government got out of the way and allowed people to do for themselves what people should do for themselves, they could treat themselves like they do their cars.  You wouldn’t file an insurance claim every time you put gas in the tank or change your oil.  If you did, you’d expect skyrocketing car insurance prices. Why treat health care otherwise?  Anyone who wants their insurance to cover routine tests, flu shots, minor medical issues should pay their own way just like anyone who wants their car insurance to cover everything would be expected to pay.  If you want “full coverage” medical insurance with no deductible, you’ll spend a lot of money for that convenience.  But if you want only coverage for serious things, if you are willing to pay cash for routine things and minor issues, you can get coverage for a fraction of the cost.  the difference between a $5000 deductible and a $20 deductible is huge!We need to promote private savings for health care, keeping insurance low cost by having higher deductibles, and prosecuting medical providers who falsely bill and order unnecessary tests.
Right now, if you raise the deductible high enough anyone but a penniless bum can afford the insurance. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to use it since he’s never meet the deductible, but that’s the far extreme opposite of the current demands from the socialists who expect anyone with a job to give up their hard earned and their freedom to buy that bum’s insurance and pay his deductible.  We shouldn’t have government involved in medicine or insurance, there’s no constitutional authority for the federal government to be involved, but we can talk about ideas. We can promote what’s right.  And self-governing people in a free society should be talking about self sufficient systems in health care.  A plan should promise  no additional health care freebies, no tax dollars spent to pay any of your medical bill or drugs or anything else.  But we should fight tooth and nail to get government’s grubby crooked fingers out of our pockets and out of the scams which are causing medical insurance to continue it’s insane rise in cost. If government got out of the way, as an example, 100 families averaging two adults and two children could pool their resources and buy medical insurance with a $10,000 deductible for all 400 people could be purchased for peanuts. Call any insurance company and ask about the price.

Buying bulk saves even more. If 1000 or 10,000 families did likewise it would be even cheaper.  But how many can afford the $10,000 deductible? Ask yourself this:  How many are driving a $10,000 car? They could obviously afford that.  What’s more important, necessary medical attention or a new car?  But of those 100 families, a few couldn’t afford it to be sure. And what of the less serious medical problems?  What about little Junior’s sprained ankle which cost a hundred bucks, or a broken arm costing a thousand or so, or a birth costing close to the $10,000 deductible only because lawsuits have driven up the cost of malpractice insurance?  Simple… Those 100 families who pool their recourses set the rules and share their resources based on those rules. If they agree to loan one of their members (or give all or some percentage) then they make it affordable.  With government running socialist medical scams there is no oversight other than that required by the government masters to cut costs, which translates into rationing like you see in other counties with socialist medical scams like Canada and the UK where people over certain ages are cut off and left to die based on costs no matter how much was taken from them by force to pay for the system.
The main reason medical insurance is so costly is that so many people treat it as a maintenance plan.  They want the insurance company to pay for every flu shot, every stitch, every headache, and every little thing with any cost attached.  Imagine what the cost of car insurance would be if everyone expected the insurance company to cover every oil change, tire replacement, tire rotation, tune-up, wash and wax, and every fill up with gas. It could easily run into $1000 a month and you’d have millions of ignorant people demanding government intervention and federal government programs taking tax dollars to insure everyone driving. How many of the recipients of that service would care if oil changes went up to $500? How many would even notice, much less object when the price of a tire rotation rose to $1000?  Hey, it’s “free”, right? There’s the problem with socialism,and the primary reason medical costs( and so many other things) is growing out of control.
So what about the homeless bum on the street with no job and no money?  That’s what charities are for.
If you make over $100,000 a year, you already have the resources to buy insurance outright with a low deductible and waste money if you want. You shouldn’t have to waste more because a bunch of other people want to treat insurance as a daily maintenance plan.

The federal government should butt out of everything medical.  State government have no specific constitutional edict that prevents them from being involved in medicine, or course.  That’s why states license doctors, not the federal government.  But even the states should limit their involvement to licensing and prosecuting fraud, and perhaps encouraging people to pool their resources, even encouraging insurance companies to offer similar plans for profit.