Principles For Health Reform
by Jameson Campaigne
Issue 119 - November 5, 2008

Gordon Gekko, move over, it is not 1987 anymore -- and greed is not good.

Too many greedy hospitals gouge the uninsured, often charging eight times their costs, while insurance companies pay only a small percentage above cost for the same procedure – greed that turns an $8,000 bill into a bill for $64,000.

Too many greedy insurers turn a blind eye to skyrocketing hospital prices, so they can jack up ever-higher insurance premiums.

Too many greedy patients consume more health care than they need; use more care than is healthy because they view it as free – because their employer or their insurer is paying.

Too many greedy seniors overuse Medicare and view doctor appointments as a social occasion, and pride themselves on getting the latest drugs and treatments without any significant changes in their health outcomes – and then stick American taxpayers with the bill.

We have created a system that has protected so many from the actual price of care that literally, no one knows what it costs any more, because those consuming aren’t paying the bills and they rarely, if ever, ask. Every one wants it, no one wants to know or does know the cost, and everyone pays: this is health care in the United States today.

Moreover, because those with HMO-style, company paid insurance policies do not own their policies – their employer does – the employer instead of the individual decides what insurance and health care is appropriate.

The U.S. government is spending $627 billion a year for Medicare and Medicaid – about $6,000 in average taxes for every household in America! There are no $500 toilet seat scandals, but you know there is something wrong. Not because the fraud, waste and abuse do not exist, but because there are no hearings, investigations or news reports about it.

Spending on Medicaid and Medicare will double in 10 years, and here we are collectively and happily ignoring this “asteroid strike” event few are aware of and those who are aware are doing nothing to stop it.

Ninety-two percent of seniors have Medigap policies that eliminate their Medicare deductibles, so they live in a no-deductible world, a world no other Americans live in – because taxpayers pay for everything.

Welcome to world of health care simply explained in a new book, America’s Health Care Crisis Solved, by the late J. Patrick Rooney and Dan Perrin.

Here are the Rooney-Perrin solutions to our health care crisis:

• Insure every uninsured American – most of whom are working and earn too much to qualify for Medicaid – with cash to buy insurance, just like employers who provide health insurance benefits to their employees; and do it without a new tax increase, by reconfiguring the current employer provided health insurance tax break.
• Force price transparency on hospitals.
• Use quality “do it right the first time” care, which is more effective and less costly in the long run.
• Promote the use of in-store “Minute Clinics” for the run-of-the-mill colds, coughs, and fevers and relieve the pressure on our failing emergency rooms.
• Cut your health insurance premiums by up to 45% by switching to a Health Savings Account qualified insurance plan.
• By cutting 10% per senior in Medicare, and giving each a cash voucher to buy insurance and allowing them to put the balance in an Health Savings Account – seniors would have $12,000 a year to spend and thousands more to put in their account, an account they would own, to meet their $2,500 deductible.
• Allow Americans whose employer does not provide health insurance (40% of those now working) to buy their health insurance across state lines, circumventing monopolies created by state legislatures and insurance company lobbyists. National competition will lower everyone’s insurance bill.

We can solve the health care crisis, with innovation and political courage.

It really is that simple, and I encourage readers to get a copy of America’s Health Care Crisis Solved (John Wiley & Sons) to find out for yourself just how easy free market health care reform can be, before the next session of Congress makes things even worse. The new president should read it too.

American Conservative Union board member Jameson Campaigne is an Illinois-based book publisher and newspaper and book publishing consultant.