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Free market solutions to health care reform?

What are some alternative solutions to the current plan proposed in the house that result in reform through free market solutions, not government takeover?

Public Comments

1. There is no 'govt takeover', the free market solution is built right into the plan. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Should be simple enough, even for a neo-con.
2. We could start by making health care an actual free market by relieving the AMA of their control over the supply of doctors and let medical schools enroll as many students as they can train.
3. Most of the problems go back to the fact health care insurance has created a private club. Heath care, insurance, pharmaceuticals are the largest industry lobby in Washington. Laws and regulations controlling the industry are written in Congress. They begin in certain House and Senate related committees. The lobbyists and PAC's target these committees and their members. Major money is then poured into their campaigns. In short, the health care insurance lobby owns the Senate. The lobby reform Obama promised is the place to start. Once you take that lobby money out of those committees, break up those monopolies, stop allowing these insurance companies to write their own laws and regulations, real free market competition will open up. Right now we have greed driven corporations controlling and dictating the market. Replacing that with an incompetent government controlled system, is not the solution. Creating a true competitive free market where the major players are not allowed to write their owe rules and suffocate competition is the answer.
4. Anne doesn't get it. The govt. will do the takeover LATER ...after the plan is passed by congress....they are very sneaky.
5. 1. Tort Reform. Get rid of "Jackpot Justice. Doctor's malpractice insurance premiums are out of control - $100 - $200K a year! Doctors are forced to practice "defensive medicine" ordering every test in the book in case they get sued. Studies have shown that defensive medicine costs $100 - $200 billion per year, and there is not a word about tort reform in the entire package. High malpractice insurance isn't paid by doctors - the cost is passed on to you - and your insurance company. 2. Get rid of state-mandates. Individual states dictate certain things that health insurance MUST cover in their state - making the policies non-transportable across state lines; reducing national competition 3. Allow younger, healthier people who want them to have high-deductible "catastrophic" policies - let them pay for their own smaller costs such as flu, sprained ankles, etc. out of tax-deductible, employer sponsored "Health Savings Accounts" (like a retirement plan, only for health costs). One of the reasons healthcare costs are so high (hospital and doctor costs, not insurance costs) is that individuals don't pay them, insurance companies do. Shift some of the burden to the individual, and people will be a little more selective about whom they see and for what reason. Compare this to car insurance - your insurance company will pay for accidental damage from dents to windshields to total destruction - but you pay for tires, tune-ups, maintenance, transmission work, etc. Higher deductibles, more individual participation will force doctors and insurance companies to be more competetive. 4. Allow the government to subsidize health insurance companies for accepting "pre-existing conditions", if they can manage such a thing. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were around to subsidize banks for loans that were outside of their risk-pool; why not do the same for health costs? 5. Offer the same tax-deductibility for individual plans that exist in employer sponsored plans. Offer group discounts for associations and smaller groups to increase the buying power for those not associated with large corporations. The current system is unfairly biased toward larger companies and their employees. 6. This is not so much a "Free Market Solution", but it is an important part of the mix - CLEAN UP WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE IN MEDICARE! This is a huge burden to our present system and our present tax structure. Obama is proposing $500 billion cuts in Medicare, but virtually all of them come from limitations on services, not waste management.