Do you want real healthcare reform?

This is my four point solution to the rising healthcare costs

1) Encourage Individual/Family Policies: Take the employer out of the health insurance game. My boss does not negotiate nor purchase my home, auto, or life polcies. Why should he be responsible for my health insurance? When the employer provides group insurance the costs of insurance are hidden from the individual. Let's put the costs of insurance in front and center of the consumer. If my employer does not have to pay my health insurance premiums, I expect my wages will increase to maintain my overall benefits package. They better, or else I will seek employment elsewhere. The insurance companies would then have to compete to win the business of each individual and family. Competition is good for the consumer. Furthermore, anyone who purchases health insurance should get a tax credit. If we enact these reforms, then the individual will have resources and incentive to purchase a private individual or family policy in a healthy competitive health insurance market.

2) High Deductible Insurance with Health savings accounts: Health Savings accounts require that the owner maintain a high deductible insurance policy. All medical expenses are covered once the deductible is met ($2400 individual $4800 per famliy), but I must pay all expenses up to that amount. The amount I save in premiums compared to a co-pay policy allows me to bank thousands of dollars a year in an portable 401k investment account that I can take with me if I leave my employer. HSA policies cause me to be judicious about the medical services I seek out. We go when we are really sick, but we dont go top the emergency room for every sniffle. My average out of pocket expense per year under this system for a healthy famliy of 4 has been less than $3,000 per year.

3) Legal Reform: I have heard medical professionals talk about the fear of litigation and how it effects treatment. 20 years ago when Johnny bumped his head his parents were told to watch him closely. Now, Johnny is going to get a 3D color brain scan to make sure that doc doesn't get sued. The doc suggests this course of (over)treatment to cover his ass and mom and dad who only have to pay a co-pay are all for it. Furthermore, actual litigation and judgments push malpractice insurance so high as to chase professionals out of service. This administration has no desire to enact legal reform to assist the health care industry.

3) Immigration Reform: Many of the uninsured are not citizens. Much of the strain on the medical system and escalating costs involve these uninsured. I hate it when I hear people talk about folks dying in the streets of America, because they are uninsured. Emergency Rooms in my state treat people regardless of thier citizenship or insured status. So as it stands, the uninsured can and do get health care subsidized by the premiums of all those insured. These individuals should have affordable policies available as a result of a healthy private insurance market. They should have to buy thier own health insurance just like I have to. If our country needs the services and contributions from these immigrants, then we need to have a proper legal immigration system that eliminates the underclass of people who have to live in the shadows, and who cannot afford lifes basic necessities.

Overall, I beleive that America has the best healthcare system in the world. Our capitalist system yeilds the most innovation and advancement. The level of care has risen along with technology to the point where we expect miracles from our healthcare providers everyday. Sure there are higher costs that are an increasing burden on employers and families, but a government takeover is not the solution. Reform should come from government opening up the insurance market and from giving tax credits to make the purchase of health insuirance affordable to all. The idea that the government running a public option will do this is ridicuolus. If you want something for "free" then you are going to get what you pay for.