"Demand side solutions will do nothing to increase availability of healthcare. We need a supply side solution."
I'd like to think this impacts both sides if it continues to gain popularity. You'd be amazed at the increased efficiencies when it's your own money you are spending. I sit here with a chest cold, at work and unlikely to waste $150 to see the doctor. It does work both from the premium side as well as the efficiency side. Give me an example of what you mean by a supply side solutin that doesn't ential larger government or regulation.
Eliminate the laws that require me to visit a physician in order to purchase medication.
I have asthma. Albuterol, one of the mildest medications available to treat asthma, is only available with a prescription. Epinephrine and all it's nasty side effects is available over the counter, however.
I'm educated and know how to read the Physicians' Desk Reference. I do not want or need someone else's permission to self-medicate. If someone less knowledgeable wishes to obtain a physician's opinion first, they are more than welcome.
This will also free-up time for doctors to treat the serioulsy ill.
It is true that if your supply is fixed (as it is), then cutting demand will cause the price to decline. So a demand side solution that reduces demand might cause a price decline. But that's not what they've got planned. They are planning to find new ways to finance demand, and that means more demand. On occasion, they try to suppress demand, but while that might reduce the price, it does not increase the overall welfare. Telling people they cannot get healthcare that they want is not a positive result. The purpose of the economy is to satisfy wants, not to decide what the wants should be. In a free society, people make their own decisions as to how much healthcare they will demand.
My supply side solutions are basically to reduce the regulation that has restricted the number of doctors and other healthcare professionals. Also, get the government out of the business of telling people that they can't invest in the healthcare industry. Our healthcare regulations are designed to stifle production. It doesn't take an economist to see that reducing supply is a sure fire recipe to drive up costs.
The current regulatory scheme is based on the fundamentally false theory that if you restrict how much producers pay for the inputs they use to produce healthcare, then you can pass the savings on to the consumer. But regulating how much people can spend on producing healthcare does nothing to reduce price. The price of a commodity only reflects costs of production in a purely competitive market, and the healthcare industry is far from that.