There is a new book out that suggests that we would get better health care if the complexity of health care coverage was made simpler. Many of us may not agree with the specifics of the book, but the general theme of the book makes sense. A massive bureaucracy (whether an insurance company bureaucracy or a government bureaucracy) is enough to give anyone a headache that regular aspirin won’t alleviate.
Healthcare, Guaranteed by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel tries to apply the KISS principle to health care (keep it simple stupid). In the place of the massive amounts of rules and regulations promoted by insurance companies and the government, he proposes a voucher for health insurance that would cover the same benefits that members of Congress receive.
Insurance companies would have to accept the vouchers, and each person would be able to choose from the array of doctors, hospitals, and health plans. Also, a National Health Board would provide oversight. That’s about it.
Now, I know this all might sound politically naïve, until you realize one important fact. Dr. Emanuel has a younger brother by the name of Representative Rahm Emanuel (who is the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives). He is well aware that a simple solution may be a tougher sell than the current system. But he is also betting that Americans want action on health care and would like the system to be simpler not more complicated.
Each year most of us receive from our insurance companies something that looks like a telephone directory for a small town. Those are all the rules we need to follow in filing a medical claim. Did you read yours cover-to-cover? I didn’t think so. Those of you on Medicare probably aren’t any more familiar with all the rules and regulations established by the federal government.
Paying for a voucher system might be a challenge, but putting power in the hands of patients might just be the change we need. At the very least, it is worth serious consideration. So let’s let the debate begin. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.
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Most discussions about the rising cost of health care emphasize the need to get more people insured. The assumption seems to be that insurance, rather than the service delivered by doctor to patient, is the important commodity. We need to understand that any middleman interposed between seller and buyer raises the price of a given service or product. Some intermediaries justify this by providing benefits, such as salesmanship, advertising, or transport. Others offer physical facilities, such as warehouses. A third group, utilizes fear and intimidation to muscle its way into the provider/consumer chain, raking in hefty profits and bloating cost, without providing any benefit at all. Insurance is all about betting against negative consequences and the insurance business model is unique in that profits depend upon goods and services NOT being provided. Health insurers have taken steps to avoid surprise: Once they affix themselves to the doctor and patient hosts, they systematically suck the lifeblood out of the supply chain with obstructive strategies. For that reason, the consequences of any insurance based health care model, whether it be privately run, or a government entitlement, is easy to predict. There will be progressively draconian rationing using denial of authorization and steadily rising co-payments on the patient end; and massive paperwork and other bureaucratic hurdles, and steadily diminishing fee recovery on the doctor end. Some of us are old enough to remember visiting the doctor and paying him or her directly by check or cash. You had a pretty good idea going in what the service was going to cost. Because the doctor didn't need to share a rising chunk of his profits with an insurer, the cost was likely to be reasonable. The same went for hospitals: no $20 aspirins due to insurance company delay tactics and other shenanigans. If substantial numbers of healthcare providers shook off the insurance monkey on their back, en masse, and the supply of providers was substantially increased by opening more medical schools, the result would be a more honest, cost effective system benefiting everyone. Except the insurance companies. Blood sucking was a treatment that was taken out of the health care system centuries ago. George Cancilla Click here to reply to this post
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