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

To: gg cox who wrote (24042)	7/3/2012 8:05:36 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 42652

You got to come up with a better plan than Obama's. That's too easy. What we had before was hardly ideal but it better than Obama's (or maybe "Pelosi's and Reid's", Obama signed on, but I don't think he really shaped the law much). What to change from that to make it better than PPACA, or the situation before the law? Generally try to reduce the extent the government gets in the way of competition or increases cost insulation. Reduce insurance coverage mandates, and other expensive or competition limiting regulations, allow an open interstate market in insurance. Tort reform (largely a state issue, and overrated by its strongest supporters, also partially done already, but still useful). That's a start. Medicare and Medicaid in some form are a political inevitability, but they are unaffordable as currently structured, so they have to be reformed as well. Replacing direct government payments for care, with an amount of purchase of private insurance, would allow for a less centralized one size fits all model. Also the government's costs would be limited to a defined premium subsidy (which would grow over time in real per capita, and per covered person terms, but wouldn't involve and open ended commitment for government spending.

To: gg cox who wrote (24042)	7/3/2012 8:08:01 PM
From: Brumar89	2 Recommendations Respond to of 42652

On the contrary, several of those are good object lessons of what I don't want. As far as improving the US system, first we need to stop people from making it worse. Once that's accomplished we can pursue tort reform and policies that encourage insurance flexibility and movement toward a system where low-level costs are paid by individuals and high-cost medical catastrophes are handled by insurance. It wouldn't make sense for auto insurance to cover oil changes and routine maintenance, but that's how health insurance is handled.