Posted on 11/07/2019 4:40:53 AM PST by The Houston Courant
"More choice" means I stop being compelled to subsidize your health plan.
The whole system is distorted because medical insurance is THE ONLY form of compensation that an employer can give to an employee that is deductible as a business expense for the employer and yet not taxed as compensation to the employee.
The good news is that perhaps the biggest reason health care is so expensive is that it has gotten so ADVANCED and EFFECTIVE.
One problem with health care is that it rarely involves a product or service that can be sold as "discretionary" -- which limits the ability of the producer to take advantage of economies of scale that lower costs over time. Pepsi and Coca-Cola keep the production cost of their products low by bottling millions of them in a highly automated process. Ford or Toyota can lower the unit cost of an SUV by producing 200,000 of them at a time. Boeing can do the same thing with a 787 by producing 1,000 of them over several years.
But a medical facility can't go out and spend $X on an MRI machine, then go around trying to sell patients on the idea of getting MRIs just for the hell of it. Medical care is the kind of commodity that you hope you never need -- but you want to have readily available, and 100% effective, when you DO need it.
Do you ever wonder why the Amish never complain about the cost of health care? It's because health care is dirt cheap when anything more complicated than a broken bone is likely to be fatal.
All very true. And we see the iceberg! It’s there right in front of US. The dynamics need to change.
Thank you for posting this. Just think of the possibilities here if a Democrat gets us Medicare for all. Horrifying!
There’s reason why Josef Stalin stated “govt health care control is THE crown jewel of communism/socialism”.
Yes, and by extension the rest of America got screwed because the individuals buying Obamacare didn't get the same deductibility! Let everyone get an equal playing field, if your employed they employer gets it, Self employed, a 1099 freelancer you get it. I'd go so far as eliminate all deductions and make the only one for policy purchases, Direct Primary Care, and all other ancillary health care cost. I'd tell the Dem's put up or shut up, you want everyone covered? Good make it you No. 1 priority, not your power.
BTW Dr Dave Janda did a great show one day about how they came to the conclusion HSA's + Direct Primary Care tax deductible was the solution, and they came to this conclusion when he was working with C Evert Koop and President Reagan on how to fix healthcare! the Ideas are not new, the deep state doesn't want solutions, just us at their trough....
It evolved that way in the US because the government imposed wage controls and the only way employers could offer their employees more was by increasing benefits - like healthcare.
I don't know of anyone who thinks it's the best way to do it today but we're living with a system that grew up over many decades.
The main thing keeping the system in place is that employers can deduct the money they spend on employee healthcare but individuals buying their own insurance can not.
That's true so long as you're responsible and can pay for all of the care you may need (and I imagine that you personally are).
The problem is when you can't pay and the rest of society gets stuck with the cost via higher hospital charges, higher insurance rates and higher taxes.
If you make an irresponsible choice I'm going to end up paying.
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