Replace ObamaCare With Health Savings Accounts

Yes, it is law, for every dollar in premium collected, 80 cents will be set aside for claims. The state Departments of insurance all have enforcement officers/accountants in place. It’s an effective system, the fines are huge, and the insurance companies will never escape the claims ratios. Once caught, every dollar not set aside has to be put back into the claims reserve accounts, or the insurance companies will be forced into a receivership type situation, or lose their license to sell in the state.

Worse case scenarios, such as outright fraud by executives, result in state and Federal prosecutions on a regular basis...

But you’re not addressing what could be done with that money in the alternative.

And even if 80 cents on the dollar goes out to pay claims... it’s a washout (in a best case scenario) for individuals when healthcare costs and premiums continue to rise.

It is the catastrophic issues.
Come down with cancer, have a preexisting condition and you are out a lot of money.

My wife is only 31 and pays 40% more now since Obama Care passed. She pays $700 a month.
Chew on that number and you see how individuals are screwed compared to group rates.

HSAs are also a washout (in a best case scenario, where over many years they don’t have a catastrophic event and hit their coverage ceiling) for individuals when healthcare costs rise.

HSAs work in low cost states, they do not work in most of the US, and as the percentage of the population on Medicare increases in the coming years, HSAs will make even less sense from the care providers’ side of the equation as patients with HSAs will not be able to subsidize costs related to treating Medicare and Medicaid patients.

There are no real good answers here as the costs of health care as a total percentage of US GNP is very high and outside of radical restructuring of the entire medical delivery and insurance industries we’re not going to see a solution until we’re over the precipice.

HSAs as sold by Pres Bush during the Bush administration were a bandaid over the wound, a bit of coverup makeup over a cadaver, and good enough to give him a campaign stump speech sound bite.

For much of Bush’s core constituencies in low cost Red States, HSAs only work due to the relatively low cost structures of medical providers. The type of insurance/coverage/payment system is irrelevant.

HSA’s are intended to be one part of the overall solution. Medicare/ Medicaid will be broke in a little more than a decade. Bringing down costs in high cost states will involve a multitude of factors, including cross border options and tort reform.

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