The administration is finding that their plan to socialize US healthcare has been poorly conceived and that the public feels it has been misrepresented to them.
Health insurance, basically, is what the Obama administration is centering its socialization plans upon, while, despite cost distortions and related problems, 87% of Americans are happy with the insurance aspect of their healthcare (Gallup poll).
Insurance is not the issue. It is the system, and the incentives within it, many created by the government. And it is not insurance industry profits. They are one-half of one percent of the US annual $2 trillion healthcare costs.
Here are 8 things that would address the bulk of what is wrong with today’s system:
- there are cost distortions in the system: both intentional and due to the incentive structure imposed from outside;
- care facilities are business islands causing, among other things, duplicate and erroneous procedures to be performed;
- federal policies need to be reviewed to see which may be inadvertently causing higher costs;
- fraud needs to be taken out of the Medicare system (estimated to be between $60-80 billion annually);
- legal predators are “over-feeding” at the healthcare trough;
- having a large body of people free riding and not paying healthcare does not make sense;
- denying healthcare coverage to those with existing conditions does not make sense; and
- healthcare should go with the person when he loses or takes a new job.
In my opinion a majority of Americans would be behind a program of reform that included these components. Hopefully the Obama administration will see the light and change course.
