OK, conservatives, let's hear your plans for health care reform.
I know the GOP loves them some tort reform, and buying insurance across state lines, but that doesn't solve the problem of rising medical costs and preexisting conditions.
One idea I've heard in a couple places now is to couple tax exempt Health Savings Accounts (HSA's) with the provision that if medical costs exceed 20% of a person's income in a given year, the government picks up the tab for the remaining costs. Under this scheme government would be the insurer of last resort, and people with preexisting conditions wouldn't be totally wiped out in any given year.
If we could incentivize businesses to match HSA contributions, like they do with 401(k)'s, the average middle class family (income of $50,000 a year) could contribute 5-10% of income into an HSA, and thereby have a pool of $5,000-$10,000 a year to cover medical expenses. Healthy people could piggy-back some cheap catastrophic plan on top of the HSA's just to keep themselves out of bankruptcy. Or they might just depend on their HSA's if they know they won't be on the hook for more than 20% of their income. That should be sufficient for most families, if the govt. swoops in when things go really bad.
I imagine this would be fairly cheap for the government, business would love decoupling health coverage from employment, and people spending their own own money on non-emergency medical care might lead to lower prices.
Of course, that's just a broad sketch and leaves many questions unanswered, but I'm curious if any conservatives here support something like that?
I know the GOP loves them some tort reform, and buying insurance across state lines, but that doesn't solve the problem of rising medical costs and preexisting conditions.
One idea I've heard in a couple places now is to couple tax exempt Health Savings Accounts (HSA's) with the provision that if medical costs exceed 20% of a person's income in a given year, the government picks up the tab for the remaining costs. Under this scheme government would be the insurer of last resort, and people with preexisting conditions wouldn't be totally wiped out in any given year.
If we could incentivize businesses to match HSA contributions, like they do with 401(k)'s, the average middle class family (income of $50,000 a year) could contribute 5-10% of income into an HSA, and thereby have a pool of $5,000-$10,000 a year to cover medical expenses. Healthy people could piggy-back some cheap catastrophic plan on top of the HSA's just to keep themselves out of bankruptcy. Or they might just depend on their HSA's if they know they won't be on the hook for more than 20% of their income. That should be sufficient for most families, if the govt. swoops in when things go really bad.
I imagine this would be fairly cheap for the government, business would love decoupling health coverage from employment, and people spending their own own money on non-emergency medical care might lead to lower prices.
Of course, that's just a broad sketch and leaves many questions unanswered, but I'm curious if any conservatives here support something like that?
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=269349&goto=newpost
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