HERE is MY problem with government run health care... and the complaints/solutions.

For the moment, I'm going to avoid talking about special situations... because while I don't dismiss them in any way... they are the exception rather than the rule... and if we can solve the problems of 85% of Americans, we can charge that 85% a few extra dollars and slove the problems for the tougher cases...


In simplest terms... Insurance, no matter WHO runs it... is about collecting premiums that are equal to or greater than what you pay out for services... plus the cost of administering those services. Certainly, insurance companies spend a fair amount of time and money fighting claims... and balance that with the cost of "paying" if you lose in court or whatever... PLUS losing customers if your program is run poorly. In this country... Doctors should ALWAYS be able to charge more if they offer a superior level of care... and people should ALWAYS be able to purchase a better level of care if they are willing to pay for it themselves. Anything that doesn't allow that is socialism and has no place in this country.

Insurance companies have an incentive to keep administrative costs low. They have an incentive to keep expenses down. They ARE incented to have income as high as they can get away with, but the free market system keeps them from being able to gouge people. Though they certainly measure things like the cost of paying claims versus the cost of fighting them, and paying only if they lose... at least there is a way to fight them and punish them for doing wrong through the courts and through the government. Who does that for complaints against the government? Sure, you can vote out your representative... but you can't vote out the Medicare Administation Board.

In something run by the government... there is ZERO incentive to keep overhead down. In fact, they are incented to keep overhead high and NEVER cut administrative costs. Only in government do we have the "if I don't spend it, i lose it" mentality... You can't tell me the government doesn't deny claims that all of us think should be paid... and if they are wrong, whom do you sue?? The answer is nobody... and while they don't mind suing insurance companies, lawyers don't like to sue the government.

Without endorsing the specifics of his plan, or claiming this is exactly what he envisioned... I REALLY liked some of what I heard of McCain's Healthcare proposal... and I wish we'd adopt something like the following:

We should establish some level of basic healthcare for everyone. There are already some pretty reasonable HMO type health-care coverages you can buy for around $500/month/Family. No, not a perfect plan... but something that covered an awful lot of what most people need. People could make some choices between more coverage and a higher co-pay or deductible, or less coverage and lower out-of pocket costs. It could be funded by what we currently pay for Medicare/Medicaid... PLUS rather than force employers to offer and administer a healthcare plan... we could simply 'tax" them an equivalent amount for this basic plan. Employers at the larger companies, or those who have competitive fields where benefits are an important part of the equation could then offer ad-on insurance policies with the companies or the individuals paying only the difference between the basic and the "golden" plan.

The government would only need to administer the premium collections and monitor the policies offered... maybe offer seminars on the choices... PEOPLE would be free to choose from the variety of policies offered. The government could oversee complaints and even take insurers out of the mix if they fail to provide the services they agreed to offer. Talk about oversight... If you fail in your duties, we can take millions of policy holders away from you and give them to your competition. Insurance is about spreading risks. You want as big a pie as possible. Losing ALL of your customers because you fight them too hard is a big disincentive... and having high ratings that attracts more people.. ESPECIALLY if you are SO much better than that last company that when they get kicked out of the plan, you get ALL of their customers??

Only problem is... I am quite certain that when this happens... we'll do that moronic thing that government always does...

Turn this into an experiment in social engineering... because we didn't learn anything from the mortgage mess