A Plan for Healthcare
I’ve decided that I can’t keep bashing the Democrat’s Universal (Socialized - you can call it whatever you like, but it is what it is) Healthcare Plan without offering up a solution of my own. Now let me start by saying that I’m open to changing this plan. In fact, I’m all for scrapping the entire plan or at least large parts of it. But this the best solution I’ve been able to come up with that continues on with the free market American way (controlled with a standardized plan, mind that) and maintains the high-quality of healthcare in this country.
I’m come up with a plan that mixed the current system with some of the elements I feel are the best in the Universal Healthcare proposals.
Please offer suggestions, comments, and criticisms of this plan - this is the first draft of the plan - so I doubt it’s even close to perfect. In fact, I can say with 100% certainty that it’s not perfect.
- Standardized Health Insurance Contract - Put together a conference of top medical professionals, insurance industry leaders, government officials, and certain private citizens to develop a comprehensive and standardized health insurance contract with categorized (itemized, but not really) choices. Almost like a health insurance buffet where you get a standard plan and then you can add on all sorts of choices. The companies would then be able to compete based on customer service and pricing of their policies, based on how efficient they could turn their internal systems would allow them to lower prices and become a more successful company.
- Nationwide Electronic Medical/Insurance Database - This is where I pull in one of the best elements the universal healthcare proposals, since the Democrats seem so willing to pay for the entire system I think they would probably be just fine covering just the IT. This would be an extremely progressive system that would allow every doctor in America to link up to this system and enter patient information, billing, medical records, and check out insurance policies. Essentially, this would be every American’s medical diary. According to facts the Clinton Campaign uses in it’s speeches on healthcare, 30 cents out of every dollar for insurance are spent on paperwork, so I decided lets cut that out and take 25% of the healthcare costs away (leaving some room for expenses under the next system, of course). How many more people can afford it then?
- Open Prescription Drug Import/Purchasing - I know the drug companies may attempt to get in the way of this one, but I still don’t understand the whole ban on outside drugs. We buy toasters, televisions, cars, and many other products outside - why not medicine? Cheaper you say? Isn’t that the point of a free market society? To create the best possible price for the consumer.
- Perks for leading healthy lifestyles - Let’s face it, America has a problem with it’s health. Obesity is penetrating to every level of society in record numbers and we are turning into a society that treats instead of a society that prevents. We need to offer benefits for preventative measures - losing weight/staying in a healthy weight, etc. I do realize though that we need to be careful with this because many times there is a story behind the problem. This is one of the parts that could probably be chucked right out because much of the time some of it is included within the insurance policy. Regardless, we really do need to deal with the preventative versus treatment problem in our healthcare system.
- Roll in Medicare - In order to make the system truly efficient, Medicare will have to be rolled into this plan. Otherwise, we are back at the same spot we were before - multiple systems, multiple rules, multiple processes. Furthermore, we will need to take a serious look at Medicare (but I’ll save that for another post), as according to the Federal Government Controller General David Walker Medicare is a far more serious problem than Social Security.
- Provide Relief - Probably the most difficult and controversial (and maybe it won’t happen right away), but in all honestly we’ve probably got to provide at lease some financial relief to those families who are unable to afford current insurance. While I’m not sure how much or even if we will be able to do this, I think it is probably a possibility.
Tags: controller general, david walker, Democrats, financial, health insurance, healthcare, IRS, medicare, ny times, social security, socialized medicine, Universal Healthcare
