Posted on 09/14/2007 4:02:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
Everyone knows our health-care system, superior as it is in so many ways, is too expensive, too bureaucratic and wasteful.
Basically, we hand over about $2.2 trillion each year to hospitals, insurance companies and government paper-pushers -- and then we let them micromanage our health care like we are helpless babies, not rational consumers.
Everyone also knows by now that Canada’s “free” national health care system -- like its sibling socialistic systems in Britain and France -- is a just another Big Government fraud.
So can any wealthy, modern country get health care right without resorting to socialism? Yes.
You never hear it touted by the media but Switzerland uses market forces, not government rules and red tape, to create a private, affordable, high-quality health-care system for its 7.5 million citizens. And it spends 40 percent less per capita than we do.
Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, a fervent fiscal watchdog and a practicing physician, knows all about the Swiss system. Much of his proposed health-care reform bill -- the Universal Health Care and Access Act -- is modeled on it.
Coburn’s plan, a major overhaul that can be found at coburn.senate.gov, is complicated, controversial and in no danger of becoming law anytime soon, if ever.
The bill's key elements include achieving universal health-care access by using tax credits to pay for individual or family insurance, phasing out reliance on employer-based insurance, allowing people to choose their own doctors and health insurance and stressing preventive care.
On Wednesday, Sen. Coburn explained why he likes the Swiss system, which operates sort of like our car insurance: You must buy health insurance but you can choose among many plans from many private companies.
Since every Swiss is covered, Coburn said, there is no cost-shifting -- i.e., no hidden subsidizing of those who don't have insurance at all or don't have enough. Cost-shifting costs Americans about $250 billion a year, Coburn said. Ending it would save a family of four about $4,000 a year.
Another virtue of the Swiss way, Coburn said, is that it has fostered a range of innovative insurance products. For example, there are five-year policies that reward customers with lower and lower rates if they do the preventive things the company asks. A third virtue, he said, is a national high-risk pool that all insurance companies contribute to that essentially protects companies from suffering heavy losses in a given year.
Fixing America's health care won't take more money, said Coburn, who notes we already "pay too much. ... One out of every $3 we’re spending today didn’t go to help anybody get well and doesn’t prevent anybody from getting sick."
"What we need to do is we need to start changing our paradigm to prevention instead of treating chronic disease. That’s what has happened in the Swiss system, and that’s why their costs are not going up."
Switzerland is tiny and doesn't have our social problems. But Coburn says its consumer-driven approach -- which is transparent to consumers in price and quality -- would work here.
Coburn knows markets aren't perfect. But he knows why the Swiss system works so well: "It forces people to shop, it forces people to make decisions. ... The point is, markets work -- if, in fact, we’ll trust them."
Nevertheless they health care system works perfect.
Do we still subsidize the cost of invention, manufacture and distribution of nearly all pharmaceuticals?
If that’s still the case, if we stopped that we’d have plenty spare cash to work our own kinked system out. There’d also be a world wide collapse of “socialized medicine” anywhere it’s practiced.
I’ve been to Switzerland. If I couldn’t live in the US, it would be my second choice.
I will say this about it: the litigious atmosphere that we have here doesn’t exist. You don’t really notice it here until you travel elsewhere, and it’s hard to describe, but the fear of getting sued, and the rush to comply with insurance company demands, is a huge and expensive drag on our overall productivity, and it manifests itself most noticeably in our medical system.
The Swiss don’t have any of that.
This reads very similar to Guliani's plan.
And the Pharmaceuticals and Insurance industries would buy into this, why?
If Congress would enact real, meaningful tort reform government subsidy of big pharma, for the most part, wouldn't be necessary. But, with 535 members of Congress, 533 of whom are lawyers, I won't hold my breath waiting for meaninful tort reform. Our legal system is out of control and that is one of the primary factors in the high cost of our health care. Waste, abuse and fraud are the other primary factors. Ask any doctor what he pays in malpractice insurance and you will quickly see where the trouble resides. Work around any hospital, as I have, and you will see rampant waste and fraud.
When it comes to frivolous law suits, a loosing party pays system would do wonders to correct what is wrong. I think some attention directed towards the shady practices of the insurance industry would also help, as well as dropping "mandatory" coverage such as pregnancy and drug rehab. As a 44 year old male I'm reasonably sure I can't get pregnant, but I am still forced to pay for pregnancy coverage regardless and that coverage does not extend to any female I might impregnate, including my wife.
One need not travel abroad to see the ill effects of our litigious society. Run business and you'll get a double helping.....
Everyone would “Have” to have insurance? As effective as that is with his example of auto insurance, I’m not too encouraged.
Don’t most states here in the US require car owners to have at least liability insurance? So why is it then that there are still so many who have wrecks and have no insurance? Mandating it, doesn’t mean people will buy it.
I don’t find anything to disagree with in what you’ve said.
Put more bluntly, cost-shifting = Communism.
Anyone who thinks they want the federal government to take responsibility for their health care should visit a Social Security office. Just think of sitting there for hours when you are sick...and then have them lose your file, etc. We won’t have to worry about those over-crowded SS offices though after government health care, because fewer people will live to collect SS.
Wouldn’t it be a great idea if one or two states tried out this system, to see if it would work here? Then all the other states could look at the results and adopt it too if they decide its a good idea. With many states trying out different systems simultaneously, we could quickly find out what works best.
Of course, this will never happen, thanks to our “friends” on the left who have insisted everything under the sun be federalized over the last 75 years. Thanks, comrades.
Hey, lets try my health care plan. If you want to work in this economy you have to show proof of health insurance (kinda of like driving a car) before you are hired. I will give every American a $5,000 tax free acount they can fund. The fund is theirs and will not be pilfered by the Feds at years end as the current Dem designed MED IRA does. The minimum health insurance policy required for an individual is a $500,000 Catastrophic Policy. There is no indemnitization, you pay cash as you incur medical costs. Note, I have cut out 33% of current health care costs by using cash. You do not have to file your health care costs with the Fed (you are considered a grown up under my plan). If you incur health care costs that you do not pay, your arrears are identified to the FEDS by the provider and your income tax is adjusted up to cover the cost of care and cost of collection. If you are really indigent, your care is covered by MEDICAID, if you are an illegal you are identifed to the ICE for deportation. Finally, if any provider is discovered to have inflated costs to individuals to cover freebies to others, then that provider can be sued for fraud. Remember, this is what happens to businesses that submit fraudulent bills to the Government, the same courtesy should be extended to the people of the US. Finally, if you are a whinny socialist incapable of managing your own affairs, we will create a “Loser’s Camp” in the desert to make sure you have food, housing, and health care. What do you think of it?
As long has the individual has the option of buying improved coverage at his own expense, I think this model sounds pretty good. The de-linking of health insurance from employment is particularly attractive.
I have pretty much resigned myself to the inevitability of a “universal” plan. So the task is to find a universal plan that does as little damage as possible. This one is good, because it preserves market forces and competition.
My preferred plan, of course, is for government to butt the heck out at all levels, and let people sink or swim as they choose. But that is just not gonna happen.
I also like the Swiss approach to gun control.
Maybe I’m Swiss, and I just never knew it!
Now, that part I like!
I’m only doing it for the children.
This a sore point of mine and has been so forever...
If everyone is not required to pay something, that individual will abuse the system. Even those who have "nothing", if they are alive and moving about the community, drive a car, have a TV and fast food must have the cost of existing, even if "given" to them in "subsidies" and "credits".
Example. Start with the average family making $40k
40K Health care-- $1440 3.6% (Typical employer + employee contribution)
20K Health care-- $ 360 1.8% half the rate, 1/4 the amount
10K Health care-- $ 90 0.9% 1/4 the rate, 1/16 the amount
5K Health care -- $ 22.50 0.45% 1/8 the rate, 1/64 the amount
No familily that gets assistance of any kind, including "free" medical assistance, rent subsidies, "free" lunches, "free" food of all kinds gets less than $5k in value annually.
If they can't even afford to pay $1.88 a month for health care, there really is nothing to talk about, and the mandatory concept of "universal health care" should be dumped forever.
Incidentally, I absolutely believe that the same holds for "income" taxes.
There should never be a zero or negative rate!
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