Posted on 09/09/2009 2:15:19 PM PDT by SE Mom
...Third-party payment has required the bureaucratization of medical care and, in the process, has changed the character of the relation between physicians (or other caregivers) and patients. A medical transaction is not simply between a caregiver and a patient; it has to be approved as "covered" by a bureaucrat and the appropriate payment authorized. The patient—the recipient of the medical care—has little or no incentive to be concerned about the cost since it’s somebody else’s money. The caregiver has become, in effect, an employee of the insurance company or, in the case of Medicare and Medicaid, of the government. The patient is no longer the one, and the only one, the caregiver has to serve. An inescapable result is that the interest of the patient is often in direct conflict with the interest of the caregiver’s ultimate employer. That has been manifest in public dissatisfaction with the increasingly impersonal character of medical care.
...
...Medical savings accounts offer one way to resolve the growing financial and administrative problems of Medicare and Medicaid. It seems clear from private experience that a program along these lines would be less expensive and bureaucratic than the current system and more satisfactory to the participants. In effect, it would be a way to voucherize Medicare and Medicaid. It would enable participants to spend their own money on themselves for routine medical care and medical problems, rather than having to go through HMOs and insurance companies, while at the same time providing protection against medical catastrophes.
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(Excerpt) Read more at hoover.org ...
ping
In effect, it would be a way to voucherize Medicare and Medicaid. It would enable participants to spend their own money on themselves for routine medical care and medical problems, rather than having to go through HMOs and insurance companies, while at the same time providing protection against medical catastrophes.
“They” will fight it just like school
vouchers. Makes TOO much sense.
but long lost Thomas Friedman is a moron
I wonder sometimes if the brighter people on the left ever actually sat down and read Milton Friedman and others who explain our principles- without knowing WHO wrote the words if they might come to a new conclusion.
Bookmark. Thanks for the ping. Can’t wait to sit down with some java later and read it.
It makes perfect sense. The problem is that it eliminates profit skimming.
How Government Solved the Health Care Crisis
libertariannation | 1994 | Roderick T. Long
Posted on 09/09/2009 2:45:39 PM PDT by secretagent
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2335789/posts
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