A Regular Guy’s Plan for Healthcare

 

            Obamacare brought the topic of healthcare front and center. Since then we have seen premiums increase, options decrease, and costs flux wildly. Proving once again that government can truly screw up just about anything. To be honest it seemed like government had already messed with the healthcare market with the use of regulations.

            First step would be to scale back the amount of government and regulations on healthcare. By reducing the regulations on the healthcare market you could increase the supply. This increase in supply would create a drop in price once the supply reached or exceeded demand. Medicare and Medicaid and now the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have all increased the demand for healthcare, while regulations like the federal certificate of need that requires the acquisition of a certificate in order to build new medical facilities have restricted supply. This high demand and low supply is why healthcare prices have increased.

            Next would be price transparency. If you know the price of a checkup at doctor A is more than doctor B and they both have the same quality, of course you will go to doctor B. Doctor A will either have to lower the price or increase the value of the service. Price transparency will be a tough thing to nail down given the nature of medical procedures. If the doctor go

es to do a surgery and has to provide another service to save your life than you don’t have time to compare prices. The same can be said in emergency situations. This is where insurance would come into play. Like car insurance, medical insurance should cover these emergency services and help mitigate cost.

            Transparency of prices would mean that you can compare the cost before you get a service. You would do that along with reviewing the reputation and quality of the service the doctor has provided in the past. This would mean the best doctors who offer the lowest price would get the most patients. As a consumer you would get the best service for the lowest price, something government is clearly unable to do.

            The last thing would be to scale back demand for healthcare. It does not matter if you love or hate Medicare and Medicaid the truth is that it artificially increases the demand on the healthcare market. This demand increases the price for everyone, forcing low income people who earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid, off of healthcare, thus forcing them to pay for someone else’s healthcare at the expense of their own.

            These are just my ideas as a layman so if I am wrong feel free to tell me. Also let me know what you think, do we need single payer healthcare or should we get rid of all forms of government healthcare? Is there any role for government to provide healthcare? The comments section is open and all ideas are welcome.