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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (6323)	3/12/2009 8:49:07 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

So (for the sake of argument) let's say that we can reduce our health care costs by, say, 35% by getting people to brisk walk 45 minutes per day 5 days a week (or some equivalent exercise). How do you turn that into public/private insurance company policy? Good question. The public/private insurance companies could give a 35% discount to (non handicapped) people who comply. How do you check on compliance... there are ways but they are pretty intrusive. Well, that's easy. You require proof of daily walking. If you haven't walked 30 mins a day at least 260 days in the last year, no health care.

To: Road Walker who wrote (6323)	3/12/2009 9:23:19 PM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Sorry for the stream of consciousness post but I haven really thought this through... still percolating in my mind. When you're ready, I'd like to discuss it. I have thought about it a bit and I don't see a solution with either insurance companies or the government. If you think you have found one, let me know. The very best incentive would be for folks to have to pay for their own destructive behaviors either via insurance risk pools or by paying their own bills. Politically, that won't happen. I see no indication that the nationalized alternative could work. That reduces, not increases personal incentive and responsibility. right now the health insurance industry is not invested in lowering health care premiums. That's true, but it's not inherent to the insurance model but rather a function of the way we've implemented it and regulated it. Car insurance companies compete on price. They give discounts for preventive actions by clients. We could do insurance in such a way as to foster that investment by insurance companies. Instead we have employer provided insurance and state regulations mandating this or that coverage. I know somehow we have to get people off their asses and doing something physical every day as part of the solution. One of the problems we have in national systems is some centralized authority deciding what behaviors to change and in what the standard should be. There are differences of opinion regarding optimal physical activity not to mention that people are different and one standard likely wouldn't work. Right now we have non-governmental "authorities" pronouncing standards. The American Diabetic Association tells people to keep the fat low and eat carbs, which is IMO backwards. I read just today that excess folic acid might be a factor in prostate cancer, yet we're mandating it as a food additive. I would never trust such a body to determine mandates. They don't know the answers, they're too rigid, and it's not right to subject all of us to them. Not to mention the cost of enforcement and the intrusiveness. Or the difficulty of composing such policies. Or the forced conformity obviating the use of demonstration projects. Or maybe you start with a public campaign to get our obese kids to exercise... Public campaigns have a lighter hand, lower costs, and fewer problems than mandates, but you still have the problem of official misinformation. The thing about public campaigns, though, is that you can do them in our current system or a nationalized system. If it's a good idea, we could do it right now.