Yes Virginia There is an Alternative to Government-Run Health Care
Even though there is some talk now about backroom plans being made to try and pass some sort of health care bill with 51 votes (now that they don’t have 60) the health care plan in its current form seems to be dead. This is great, the health care plans in Congress were an absolute disaster. To see that all you have to do is watch this John Stossel clip from 20/20:
So, where do we go from here? Read this article from Foxnews.com.
This is a great read written by Dr. Grey of Physicians for Reform (http://www.physiciansforreform.org/) The common retort to conservative charges of the new health care legislation being a non-starter is that we don’t have a better solution. Well, here are the ideas the right are proposing voiced by people that actually work in the health care field. They give five reforms that would have huge positive impacts on our health care system. I would like to examine each of these points along with facts supporting them from Physicians for Reform as well as other sources. I would also like to say I’m just a little proud that the person behind this group and writer of the article, Dr. C. L. Gray works out of my home state of North Carolina.
#1: Sell Insurance across state lines
Right now if you live in New Jersey you can’t buy your health insurance from Kentucky where it is six times cheaper. Right now it is illegal to sell insurance across state lines. This allows states to mandate what the minimums are in the insurance their citizens can purchase. As time goes on politics by its nature leads to interest groups doing everything they can to get their chosen cause into the mandated category. According to a presentation by the governor of Louisiana (http://www.ncsl.org/portals/1/documents/health/MandatesCauchi09.pdf) there are currently 1968 separate state mandates across the 50 states. The practice started in the 1960’s and was most prevalent in the 1980’s and 1990’s. My home state of North Carolina, for instance, currently has over 40 mandates while a state like Alabama has less then 20. A policy with 30-40 mandates can increase the total cost of the policy by between 20 and 45 percent. Now there is something to be said for mandates, the do create a large pool of people paying in and thus in theory lower the cost of hat particular type of coverage per person. However, this same dilution of costs could be achieved in the free market by opening up interstate insurance sales and therefore creating a much larger market. I’m sorry, but as a male I really don’t need pregnancy coverage in my insurance plan. If I have a baby I’m sure the television and movie deals alone will pay for it nicely. Equally, women do not need to have coverage for prostate screenings in their coverage. With a national market to compete in prices should become very manageable. Capitalism and competition are good things. Let us shop from all the possible plans in the country and pick the one that is right for us as individuals. Let the companies compete to provide plans that people want instead of telling people what they can have. Let the market and government come to a balance on protective mandates versus affordability.
#2: Let Individuals buy insurance with pretax dollars
Being a state employee this is something that I already do when I sign up for additional policies such as accident protection, vision, dental, etc. They take the premium out pretax and are very quick to show how doing so is actually making it less expensive because its money I’m not paying taxes on. Like the article says businesses are already allowed to do this so why not individuals looking for insurance. If government is serious about providing us with affordable health care, let it be billed pretax and let them put their tax revenue where their mouths are. The only money this will cost the government is the money they won’t be taking from the American people. You can read more about pre-tax deductions in this article from the AARP (http://www.aarp.org/money/work/articles/skladany_pre-tax-deductions.html?CMP=KNC-360I-GOOGLE-MON&HBX_OU=50&HBX_PK=pre_tax_dollars&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=CPC&utm_term=pre%2Btax%2Bdollars&utm_campaign=Money%2BSection)
Check back soon for the next installment of this article.
