http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/a_real_free_market_health_care_1.html
A Real Free Market Health Care Solution
By Frank S. Rosenbloom, M.D.
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Solution:
* 1. Don’t pass any of the Democrat health care plans. Savings of at least $3 trillion over the next five years.
* 2. Immediately do away with Medicare, Medicaid, and The Center for Medicare and Medicaid services. No other major industrialized nation has a separate system for the elderly, disabled and the poor. Scrap the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation. Savings of nearly $1 trillion in federal tax dollars yearly, $1 trillion in savings for states and billions in savings by dissolving the tyrannical Joint Commission.
* 3. People should be responsible for purchasing their own health care, not the government or the employer, making health insurance completely portable. Scrap Hillary Clinton’s HIPAA act at a savings of billions yearly. Let’s make it HIPAA-posthumous.
* 4. A Health Insurance Company must offer a good basic low-cost health care plan with expanded health savings accounts. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
* 5. No health exclusions for three years. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
* 6. Health plans should promote healthy practices and preventive health. Taxpayer cost zero.
* 7. For the poor, government should subsidize the premiums, not be involved in paying providers. Taxpayer costs by my estimate around $600 billion per year.
* 8. Retired people of lower means should be helped as above but should not have a separate insurance plan run by the government. Sorry, Medicare is dead. Promises were broken, but we are mature people and we need to get over it. Let’s not let it happen again! Taxpayer cost around $300 billion per year.
* 9. End tax penalties for individuals purchasing individual health insurance. Taxpayer cost zero dollars as these penalties are merely punitive, designed to make people dependent.
* 10. The health insurance companies in each state should have the option of creating a risk pool from some of their premium funds. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
* 11. Laws should be changed to allow for private health co-ops to be formed as an option for those so inclined. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
* 12. Patients should be free to change insurance plans at least twice yearly and since their insurance would not be controlled by their employer or the government no permission is needed from them. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
* 13. There should be no legal right for insurance plans to dismiss competent and qualified contracted physicians for “no cause”, when that no cause is really due to the physician acting as a patient advocate.
* 14. Tort reform with penalties for frivolous lawsuits and the loser paying some of the costs.
Well, there you have it. The savings for taxpayers over three years: Nearly $5 trillion. Not requiring bills hundreds of pages long: Priceless! A few short regulations and we have a viable health care system for the future covering over 99% of the population, devoid of the treachery of Medicare and without dependence on the federal government. It’s very simple, very sensible, and so easy even a government official can understand it. It’s even short enough for Congress members to read fully, though some may require several days. Oh, yes, Mr. Obama, I want our $600 billion back.
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Wow! What great ideas. Zero chance to kill Medicare. But, great ideas.
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