One of the most irritating and worrying issues that keeps coming up in the 2008 Presidential race is health care. A lot of people are all for universal health care, but I have some misgivings. It sounds way too good to be true, and it probably is. I, being a hardcore Jeffersonian, don't think that we should give the government ultimate control over the health care system. Not only will federal spending and tax rates go way, way up; the government will be in control of more than they already are.
So, while I was showering, I came up with a "brilliant," conservative, Jefferson-friendly, market-focused, win-win plan for reforming health care.
Step One: Reduce corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy. Dramatically. Supply-side economics says that when these taxes are reduced, corporations and wealthy people will be more willing to just pay their taxes instead of going to their lawyers and accountants and trying to escape from the taxes. By cutting these taxes, the government will actually bring in more revenue.
Step Two: This requires some government regulation (which I don't like,) but less regulation than a universal health care system. The pharmaceutical companies give doctors bonuses for every prescription they write. This needs to stop. Instead, require that pharmaceutical companies only give bonuses to doctors if they can submit proof that the prescription was effective (and proof must be submitted both to the company and to the state governments within one year.)
Step Three: Offer pharmaceutical companies annual or semi-annual grants and awards for every, say, hundred thousand successful treatments that they can submit proof of. Use the extra revenue from the corporations and wealthy people.
This will take the healthcare industry's focus off of writing prescriptions and put it on actually making patients healthy. This will also increase competition in the medical industry and in the pharmaceutical industry. This will affect the health insurance companies as well. Since their focus will also be on making people well, they will not deny as many people coverage due to preexisting conditions or anything else. Demand for health insurance will go up, and less people will be dropped without warning. This could even reduce the need for entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Since affordable, high-quality health care will be available, entitlement programs won't be as necessary. And who knows? Maybe some money can go back into Social Security.
Sounds good on paper - or pixels, as it were. The hard part would be getting the primarily Democratic Congress to agree to cutting taxes.
If only there was a way I could get this plan out into the public for someone in power to hear.
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1 comment:
You, my friend, are brilliant. Details might have to be worked out, but you've got a very neat plan there. I've been thinking about this too, because of a project in civics. The project wasn't directly related to health care, but it made me think about the issue. This really should get out where somebody can see it, someone who can do something with it on a national level, maybe.
Blessings,
Lizbeth :)
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