Dear Friends,
It seems to me that one of the biggest, if not the biggest, drag on the US economy, is the Health Care law. The new law is to be implemented over a period of years making the business environment uncertain for years. The long phase in period is only one of the negative impacts of the new law, the necessary increase in health care costs and taxes is another. All this bile for the economy to swallow, over such a long period of time violates Machiavelli’s maxim, that a when a wise prince can do a good for his people, he draws it out so it can be better enjoyed; but when he must do an evil to his people, he makes it quick so it is not tasted for long.
Never mind that this law is State centered, unconstitutional, with so many unrealistic requirements from the market, state governments and the insurance industry, it will ensure the system will collapse, requiring the government to eventually become a single payer provider. One reason people find this so vexing is because, in their hearts, they know this truth and resent it.
The sad part is that we all know the US needs to get health care costs under control. The part the government has already taken control of, Medicare and Medicaid, is destined to bankrupt the nation in the near future. The Obama Health care law was supposed to address this problem, with the State taking total control in ten years or so, when the system collapses. His plan was to simply accelerate the collapse.
Over five hundred years before Christ, Confucius was asked about good government; He replied good government straitens things out, rectifies terms and sets good examples.
Perhaps a better way to get health care costs under control is to follow Confucius teachings, and for the US government rectify terms. First of all, healthcare insurance is intrinsically an interstate commerce question, and should be regulated on the National level per the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution, state governments have no true legal justification in regulating healthcare insurance. If all regulation of health care were done at the national level portability would go away as an issue.
Another way to rectify terms would be to have a panel convene with equal representation from small insurance companies and large insurance companies to come up with five to ten policies that would be priced by each insurance company independently. Bringing market forces more closely aligned and making the choices for American people and American business much more easily comparable. All companies would bid on the five to ten policies. At least one would be an umbrella policy that is for catastrophic illness coverage only.
Standardized policies across state lines and standardized forms would reduce the paperwork for doctors, insurance companies and patients alike. Reduction in paperwork and file space, to accommodate the reams of redundant paperwork, required by the various companies for various illnesses, necessarily increases the overhead costs health care. Rectifying terms in these ways, would drive down these costs, for everyone effected.
But give insurance companies the leeway to come up with clever new ways to control costs. When government tries to regulate an industry it always gets more and more labyrinthine and less efficient, driving up costs, and lowering quality. This is necessarily true do to the nature of government i.e. Government being a Political animal.
Health care could be a source of growth for the US economy but it is a source of reduction. It all boils down to incentives for the individual to act. When government draws out pain for the people it does no one a service. When government creates confusion in the markets it violates one of it’s fundamental responsibilities, to straiten things out. Government does all of these things at it’s own peril, but not only it’s own, at the peril of the nation at large also.
