These are still mere tweaks of our huge, costly, burdensome health-care system, but everything helps.
The present medicare/medicaid monster will always be with us. its a political reality.
The option at this point is to allow some kind of free, simple and unregulated (a word which even scares some so-called conservatives) cash system to develop alongside it.
True. I remember when "The Six Million Dollar Man" meant something. Now it is not that hard to accrue $6,000,000 in cost in our overly technology and drug based system of money for promised long life.
No, I think it's pretty fundamental. The more you can get third parties like insurers and goobermint (both for paying and regulating) out of the equation, the cleaner the results. People see and are actually interested in what stuff costs, which does good things for the costs, but also educates people. Plus, whatever money is left over end up in the hands of a real person, not some drone down at the goobermint or insurer. PLUS, different people have different wants, needs and priorities. Third party involvement almost "insures" too much one-size-fits-all-ness. This is a power shift and mind-shift from all the wrong people to all the right people, even if the impact on actual funding is finite.
“The option at this point is to allow some kind of free, simple and unregulated (a word which even scares some so-called conservatives) cash system to develop alongside it.”
My memory is not what it used to be but I do believe that Ayn Rand made a grand effort to explain how government regulation ALWAYS results in exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to achieve. “Let the buyer beware”, results in far better results than depending on government. Government regulation beyond simply enforcing contract law creates unlimited opportunity for graft and corruption.