Making Healthcare Great Again

I try to think about our healthcare problem as if I were put in charge to solve it. I think that Obamacare has many problems and is currently on pace to be repealed or significantly changed.

The problems that I see are:
Medicaid is too expensive because there are too many patients. People with completely free government health insurance abuse the system.
Healthcare costs overall are too expensive
Private insurance is too expensive
We shouldn't have to pay more taxes to pay for these expenses
If people don't have health insurance, you shouldn't lose your livelihood because you get into a car accident or get cancan we
We have a model for socialized medicine. It's called the VA and its an epic disaster
Illegal immigrants shouldn't be receiving federal tax dollars to pay for their healthcare
Socialized medicine limits innovation that is driven by our capitalist driven healthcare system as well as limiting physician/nursing income potentials that drive some of our brightest young minds into those respective fields
Poor primary care delivery models that lead to more specialist driven healthcare which increases tests and costs

My proposals include:
A total repeal of Obamacare
Ending state line barriers for health insurance companies to promote more competition and lower premium costs
Adding a co-pay to Medicaid and Medicare patients doctor visits and prescriptions. A co-pay minimum of $5 per visit would limit unnecessary physician, urgent care, and ER visits. Also, that co-pay increases with patients who are on the fringe income limits of Medicaid as well as those wealthier Medicare patients
Adding a co-pay to medications not on the Walmart/Target $4 dollar lists much to the same degree as above
If states like California want to cover illegal immigrants' healthcare costs then they may do so but only with funds collected solely from state taxes.
My biggest and most troubling concern is that I believe that everyone should have some sort of disaster health care coverage. I call this idea my Americare idea. I think that if you get cancer or shatter your leg in a fall or get into a car accident where you spend a month in the ICU, you shouldn't have to pay $100,000 over the rest of your life. Now I know that this opens the door for a single payer system on down the line, but I believe that it solves multiple problems. It allows insurance companies to offer reasonable rates because they can offer gap coverage plans that fills in for everything outside of epic disasters, and it also allows them to refuse the expensive pre-existing conditions that has so rocked Obamacare. Americare is basically a government run insurance company that cost controls the healthcare disasters, and I don't believe that the incompetencies of government run insurance will come to light so much because the overall patient load will be fairly low. Hopefully, this repackaging of government run healthcare does not curtail the brilliant healthcare innovations within our capitalist system.
Increase public awareness as to what primary care actually is and encourage and incentivize doctors and nurses to pursue careers in primary rather than specialized care


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The only one that can afford your profit based crap is the rich. Wtf is the point?

 

I was in agreement until you got to medicare. I already pay a $5 copay so that wouldn't affect me. but when you lump medicare, which retirees paid into all their working lives with medicaid which is a welfare program, you're going to piss people off.

 

Good point.


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That doesn't address any of the problems you identified.

Medicare has deductibles and coinsurance. Most state Medicaid programs also have some form of cost-sharing.

That's how it already works.

Medi-Cal will soon cover children in the U.S. illegally. The real battle? Getting adults insured

Health expenses in a given year are concentrated on a small segment of the population. If you're saying the government is going to be financing those expenses for the costliest folks in the population, then the government will be directly financing nearly all health spending in the U.S. The difference from single-payer is pretty cosmetic at that point.

Lots of resources have been invested in primary care over the past few years. And this is continuing.



See PwC's look at what's going on in primary care.

 

Tort Reform
Allow competition across State Lines.
Increase High Risk Pools to get the high cost conditions out of the equation
Subsidize directly the problem areas...Including High Cost drugs like Cancer.
Subsidize Hospital Treatments and Cap costs via the subsidies.
Tax Credits based on ability to pay by a set Percentage of Income.
Cannot be denied due to pre existing condition
Medical Saving Accounts to be tax free before taxed on check.

Plenty of solutions out there........Braun plan
Price Plan..........which offer solutions that have fell on death ears....

 

Empowering Patients First Act - Wikipedia

Price plan