When you hear this, always ask, “Ranked by whom and how?” In 2000 United Nations bureaucrats at the World Health Organization sent a survey to “officials and experts” selected by the U.N. Why should we be surprised to learn that government “officials and experts” in France thought that their government-run health care system was the best in the world? The scoring of these surveys also made them meaningless. For example, 25 percent of the scoring was weighted based on the assessment of how “fair” the financing was in each country. For “fair,” read socialist—the list was largely a ranking of how socialist each country’s system is.
Richard Ralston has written 39 publicly repeated fallacies about health care, linked to above. It’s worth a read, whether you’re for or against the current reform bills.
GOP stumbling in health care fight – Carrie Budoff Brown – POLITICO.comThere’s no Republican plan yet. No Republicans leading the charge who have coalesced the party behind them. Their message is still vague and unformed. Their natural allies among insurers, drug makers and doctors remain at the negotiating table with the Democrats.
The Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries is a non-partisan organization. The quote above demonstrates that there are partisan divides over how best to “solve” the health care “crisis.”
Whenever the federal government addresses itself to a problem it is important for us, the citizens, to look closely at the situation and determine exactly what caused the problem. All too often the “solutions” that we see coming from the federal corridor are patches that are addressing problems that previous “solutions” caused.
The democrats have clear plans that they’re offering right now–and they’re well defined and able to be spoken of in small soundbites and marketed that way. You can see more about those plans, and the harm they’re doing at the Do No Harm Petition. All that’s left is for them to decide which of these ingredients will be in the final plan and introduce the bill.
The Republicans, as the article amply points out, have no set solution. Part of the reason for this is that it’s hard to market a solution that is merely an undoing of previous “solutions.”
Here is part of what needs to be done:
If the health care debate is going to be solved and completed, we need to move past the myth that coverage=health care. Insurance coverage is not health care. Health care is the services that doctors provide. Health care is people working to improve the health of others. And this works best in the context of personal liberty.
A five point plan to reduce the cost of health care quickly:
Reduce the scope of the FDA. Allow Americans who want to (with appropriate disclaimers provided) try experimental treatments/medicines. The FDA is not a catch all, and we need to move past the era where no one gets well without government permission. Doctors should be held accountable, but shouldn’t be tied to whatever research the government has approved–the government will always be slower than the private market, and health care needs to be de-politicized.
Eliminate the favored treatment in the tax code of employer provided insurance. This can be done most simply by taxing the benefit, but many way of equalizing the treatment of health care costs in the tax code. That if you buy insurance by yourself you deduct only from Fed W/H, and only above 7.5% of AGI, and that if you get it through your employer it’s tax free, even with respect to FICA provides horribly perverse incentives in health care spending.
Deregulate the insurance market as much as possible. 10-30% of health insurance costs come from state and federal mandates
Give incentives to doctors and hospitals to provide non-governmental charitable care. Not through direct funding (like Medicare/Medicaid) but through using private charity. The Arizona system of non-refundable tax credits for charitable donations to organizations that replace the work of government is a great way to do this. We need to wean our providers of Medicare before it goes broke.
Open the way for consumer directed health care, both religious and not (like Health Care Sharing Ministries) that re-engages the consumer in the health care decision, moves the third party to the side, and protects the doctor/patient relationship while restoring objective cost measures to the industry.
These 5 points are certainly not a perfect catch-all, but they are likely the fastest way to lower costs while increasing liberty and access. The only other way to lower costs is to ration, and a national health care plan or national insurance mandate will do just that, and the former at an increased cost. The tax treatment of employer provided insurance is a particularly difficult pill to swallow, but when your appendix ruptures it is no time to look for the painless solution.
