Reading about Anthony Wiener's appearance on Morning Joe, I realized how messed up the whole health care/insurance reform bit has been.
We could have done this in such a simpler fashion. We would not have needed 1100 pages of legislation to put in place the mass of reform-- one or two pages would have done it.
Jump over to find out...
Instead of all the new government rules to reign in insurance companies, let's do it the Republican way...simple competition and choice. After all, that's what they're always screaming about. Okay, here we go...
- Open up Medicare to everyone. Medicare will be a choice for all employer based coverage alongside private plans. It will be open to all self-employed and unemployed people as well.
- Premiums will be paid by the individual and/or the employer.
- For enrollees that are under age 65, doctors, hospitals, and other providers will be reimbursed at a rate similar to private plans.
- At age 65, one's participation in Medicare adjusts to fit the current, traditional plan that senior citizens have had for years.
- Insurance would be mandated for everyone. Subsidies will be available for whatever plan (Medicare or private) someone chooses if they are under 4x the Federal Poverty Threshold. For those who are absolutely destitute and can not afford anything, Medicare would be provided for free.
- Medicaid and SCHIP would be abolished. All participants in those plans would be moved to Medicare with costs for them paid for as they were in the prior plans. (With electronic record keeping, this would not be difficult. There is just no need for more bureaucracy.)
- Loss of employment would not cause loss of Medicare. The premium would be part of one's unemployment insurance.
I think that's it. If I missed something, add it on in a comment.
The costs of Medicare insurance would be much lower than private insurance. Yes, people would flock to it. The private insurers would suddenly find themselves having to lower their premiums, stop dropping people, stop denying people in order to keep them as customers.
Other reforms like the digitization and standardization of records could be accomplished in separate bills if need be. The same is true of reforming Part D to allow price negotiation with the drug companies.
Would this cause the private insurers to go out of business? Not a chance. They will adapt. First, there will always be people out there who will keep the private plans. Second, private plans will adjust to cover things that Medicare doesn't or might not cover- single bed room in a hospital, dental and optical coverage, various co-payments that would be charged to people under age 65, etc.
Does this lead to single payer? Maybe. But like I say, private plans will always be around in some form or another. Some of those plans will adapt in a way to become very competitive with Medicare- becoming non-profit, not paying their directors seven and eight figure salaries, etc.