The idea behind a national health plan only makes sense if the most people are able to access it. This is not the case right now, and for the foreseeable future it does not look like that will change. Any new ideas affecting American's health system need to be implemented over many years in many stages. There is nothing that will fix it overnight, no matter what any political party tells you.
What if there was a major medical plan worth say $15 to $20 thousand and anything over and above that the government picked up? Think about that one for a bit. It's a radical approach that may have radical results. In this scenario hospitals would get guaranteed payment for providing treatment.
Right now most Americans are not getting the health care they need simple because the system is driven by profit motives. Hospitals have bottom lines, drug companies charge way more than they need to for drugs and health care insurance companies charge what the market will bear. This should not come as any surprise since these are all businesses needing to make a profit to stay in business.
The problem is there is a difference between charging what is reasonable and overcharging and thereby making the marketplace hostile to people with lower incomes and circumstances that mean they are unable to access affordable health care.
If there were a way to ensure payment for hospitals, doctors etc. then the cost of health care insurance would go down. This is not first dollar coverage, but catastrophic coverage. This approach of course would require some radical rethinking of how to apportion health care dollars, but it has the possibility of saving the system money in the long run.
While this idea in just that, an idea, it joins a long line of others that have merit and potential. We only need to realize that to change things from they way they are today, that we need innovative solutions rather than tired wanna be ideas that sound good but have no basis in fiscal reality.
Richard Cantu is with Texas Health and Life, a Texas health insurance and Texas life insurance agency in Texas. To learn more, visit http://www.texashealthandlife.com
