Straight Platform Politics

The Free Market And Health Care – Part 3

  “What Is the Free-Market Approach to Health Care Reform?” This is an article published on The CATO Institute on Health Care Reform. http://healthcare.cato.org/     The article lists seven reforms; we have reviewed the first four and will now look at the last three. See Part 2

Reform 5. “We also need to rethink medical licensing laws to encourage greater competition among providers.” Examining the history of enabling legislation in the health care system causes many people to conclude that much of the legislation was enacted to protect the profession and not the patient. See The Four-Party Health Care System series

Reform 6. “Congress should give Medicare enrollees a voucher, let them choose any health plan on the market, and let them keep the savings if they choose an economical plan. Medicare could even give larger vouchers to the poor and sick to ensure they could afford coverage.” This may encourage a healthier lifestyle in the elderly while improving competition among insurers.

Reform 7. “The expansion of ‘health status insurance’ would protect many of those with preexisting conditions.” (See the February 18, 2009 Policy Analysis by John H. Cochrane on the topic of health status insurance at http://cato.org/ )

There have been good health care reforms proposed by a number of people and organizations. Many of these reforms would not be costly. But, are Congress and the President listening?

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The Free Market And Health Care – Part 1

The CATO Institute on Health Care Reform published the article “What Is the Free-Market Approach to Health Care Reform?” The article agrees that our health care system is in need of reform: “It costs too much. Too many people lack health insurance. And quality can be uneven.”

“But a government takeover of the health care system, as proposed by the president and some in Congress, would be a step in the wrong direction. Instead, we should pursue a uniquely American solution, one that builds on free markets, competition, and choice.”

The proposed solution lists seven reforms. We will look at each.

Reform 1. “Let individuals control their health care dollars, and free them to choose from a wide variety of health care plans and providers.” This would entail dismantling the huge amount of government legislation (both state and federal) that has denied individuals access to certain insurance providers and vice versa.

Reform 2. “Move away from a health care system dominated by employer-provided health insurance.” As the article asserts, health insurance “should be personal and portable” and not controlled by governments or employers. Under our employer-based system, the true cost of health care is hidden from employees, employee choice of health care policies is limited, the self-employed are at a costly disadvantage, and if employees lose employment, they may become uninsured.  See The Four-Party Health Care System series

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The Four-Party Health Care System – Part 5

“The Modern Health Care Maze: Development and Effects of the Four-Party System” was published in the Summer 2009 issue of The Independent Review. Authors Charles Kroncke and Ronald F. White conclude in their article: “Ultimately, the only way to reform our health care system successfully is to destroy the infrastructure that sustains the four-party system….” See Part 4

Kroncke and White wisely ask what most people haven’t yet asked: “In hindsight, did it ever really make sense to set up a health care system whereby fourth-party corporate employers purchase health care insurance for their first-party employees from third-party corporations, which in turn pay second-party providers for health care products and services? Does any other industry insulate buyers from sellers in this way? Why does this arrangement make sense only for the health care industry? Why not for food, clothing, and shelter? Why not for homeowners, life, and auto insurance?”

“The current maze of health care policy wrought by years of accumulated enabling legislation has in effect disabled free-market mechanisms….Until we reduce government’s ability to surreptitiously distort the market forces that drive the health care industry, the juggernaut and other dysfunctional arrangements will continue to plague the system.”

Hopefully, more people will understand the importance of changing our health care system from an employer to a patient driven system which would treat individuals far more equally than what we have now. It’s imperative that we settle for nothing less.

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The Four-Party Health Care System – Part 2

“The Modern Health Care Maze: Development and Effects of the Four-Party System” was published in the Summer 2009 issue of The Independent Review. The authors, Charles Kroncke and Ronald F. White, state: “Prevailing discourse on health care reform aims at the simultaneous realization of three extraordinarily idealistic goals: universal access to high-quality health care at a reasonable cost.”

But what does all that mean? What does universal access really mean? Access to what, exactly? Who determines what is and what is not high-quality care? Doesn’t that differ with different people? And what is a reasonable cost? That certainly differs from person to person.

One important observation in this article is that European national health care systems do not provide universal access to high-quality health care at a reasonable cost. Therefore, imitating these systems will not get us anywhere near achieving these idealistic goals even if we could define each one.

Another observation is that the “current state of the health care industry in the United States has been shaped by an accumulation of enabling legislation that began in the early twentieth century and continues unabated today.” See Part 1

This huge amount of legislation influences access, quality, and cost. Our health care system was developed “less by the invisible hand of the free market than by the visible hand of government.” Therefore, “before Americans abandon the free market, they ought at least to try it.”

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