Health-Care Reform - Part 2

In this piece I will talk about ways to reform Health-Care that will decrease costs and help develop a better marketplace that is more robust and cost efficient.

We should start by letting individuals enjoy the same tax deductions and tax breaks that corporations have when providing health-care to their employees. These tax breaks for corporations help big businesses vs small business and incentivize people to find work and stay at that job even though they may not like it simply to have insurance. A lot of people don't want to lose their health insurance when they lose their job. Let them have the same tax breaks that corporations have and we will have more individual health-care plans that are best fit the people paying for them.

Let health insurance companies compete nationwide. Why this isn't already allowed is beyond my understanding. This rule can only restrict competition and increase health-care costs for all. By letting people choose plans from across the country, consumers will be able to find the cheapest plan and health insurance companies will have to compete more vigorously for their customers. As a result they will provide cheaper and better plans.

Expand the use of Health Savings Accounts. Make them easier to use and incentivize people to use them by giving them better or equal tax breaks as regular insurance plans. The best way to reduce health-care costs is for people to use their own money to pay for their own health-care. By letting people use HSAs where they save their own money and use them for health-care costs, people will be much more willing to search out the Doctor or medical care that gives them the same service for a cheaper price. We need to get rid of the current system of health-care where people go into a Doctor's office with little regard to the price because insurance is covering it. Doctor's need to have their prices in plain sight of all customers and make it clear what the costs are going to be.

One way to encourage people to use HSAs would be to allow HSA users the option to invest the money in their HSAs much like we do for IRAs and retirement accounts. This will encourage more companies to provide HSAs and will increase investment and savings around the country. Benefiting the whole economy.

We need to let people receive tax deductions or enjoy lower insurance costs if they get regular check-ups and stay healthy. We want to reduce health care costs in the future to reduce the use of Medicare and Medicaid. One way to do this is to make sure people get medical care before their problems get bigger and more expensive.

We need to reduce costs by having Tort Reform. I am no law or legal expert but it seems to me that Doctors are paying way to much for malpractice insurance and have to worry constantly about frivolous lawsuits. Doctors should be sued when they make mistakes and punished for them but many good doctors have to pay more because of frivolous lawsuits that increase their own malpractice insurance. One doctor who is a friend of my family has had two such lawsuits and his malpractice insurance went up dramatically because of that. He did nothing wrong in both instances and was basically punished for it. He in turn will pass on some of these increased costs to his customers and the cost of everyone's health-care will go up in turn.

Finally, we need to allow Doctors to deduct the cost of providing health-care to those who cannot afford it. This way Doctors will provide care to those who need it and still be compensated for their work.

I believe many of these steps will benefit the entire health-care industry. We need to reduce costs by getting government out of the way and not by getting more government involvement. Government does not know how to provide health-care, Doctors do. Let's let them make most of the decisions and make it easier for companies to provide Health Savings Accounts and insurance plans that meet the demands of consumers.