Sunday, April 7, 2019

A Modest Proposal - Healthcare

[AdSense turned down this blog for a second time for "not having enough content."  Very well.  Given some of the other AdSense blogs out there, it's clear that Google wants nothing to do with my thoughts.  Shopping for new platforms.]

This post is brought to you by the search for Universal Healthcare.

Once upon a time, I napkin sketched a three tiered system for health care and spent some time trying to push it.  Crickets.  

This is the 0.02 version:

1) we have two decades of case law defining minimum health care for prisoners.  Give this to everyone, at government expense, period.  It would literally pay for itself in preventing emergency care, continuity of care for criminals and homeless and veterans and elderly and disabled ...  

2) The government is the largest purchaser of health care in the world.  Use that buying power to establish a standardized manual of rates (like your auto shop uses) for emergency care and common medical conditions.  Any US person or insurer or other provider can then buy care at the USG negotiated rate from their provider of their own choice, or use their USG coverage (Tricare! VA! Medicare!) to buy from their provider of choice rather than being stuck with a single provider.  The idea is that some people have their health care paid for by the government, and the USG should be paying a standard rate for that care, instead of all over the place.  Then anyone else who wants to buy that care should be able to tag along at the USG prices.  

3)  Additional health care beyond the legally mandatory minimum and the government negotiated rates, is free market ... allowing for innovation, adding it someday to the rate book in 2), and a robust private network to keep the public networks honest.  This also cushions the shock to our present health care bureaucracy and gives them new frontiers to pursue in actual patient care rather than creative billing.

Anyone have an opinion?  Bueller?

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