The Simple Solution

Why don't we look at healthcare like we look at driving insurance?
Just require all adults to purchase health insurance like all drivers must have car insurance.

Let the states define what "minimum coverage" is, and focus the rest of your energy on legislation to reign in the exorbitant fees doctors, hospitals, health equipment manufacturers, and pharm companies charge.  Really, this is the problem with healthcare now, not the lack of universal coverage.

Why require people to health insurance?  Make health care affordable, then if they choose to purchase insurance, they can.  If not, they don't.

As for lowering the cost of health care, we need to address the reasons for its current high cost.  The reasons, as usual, are a result of government interference in a free market.

I'd rather go with the following ideas:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul339.html

Why require people to health insurance?  Make health care affordable, then if they choose to purchase insurance, they can.  If not, they don't.

As for lowering the cost of health care, we need to address the reasons for its current high cost.  The reasons, as usual, are a result of government interference in a free market.

I'd rather go with the following ideas:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul339.html

>>2
requiring everyone to have private insurance sounds like it would solve the problem of cost, at least at the 'minimum coverage' level.
everyone buying into programs should result in companies lowering rates to try to lure in these millions of new potential customers

however, other matters like the forever kept high cost of drugs and surgery need to be addressed still.

I do like RP's idea on HR 3076.  Litigation against doctors and hospitals is one of the key factors driving up medical costs, and getting rid of it with 'negative outcomes' insurance sounds like it could really reduce the cost put on the patients

We still need something to stop those pharm companies from taking a drug, slightly changing it to preserve the patent, and selling it like it was new with no competition....

You have all raised some good points, however I fail to see why anything other than totally unfettered laissez faire capitalism is required. People should be free to choose whether to secure their healthcare or to spend the money on strip bars and alcohol and I fail to see why I should pay for their herpes treatments or liver damage when it was their choice. Everybody wins.

>>5
but the idea i'm putting forward here isn't for you to pay for anyone but yourself.  it's just for everyone to be required to buy insurance for themselves, like drivers insurance

it's still capitalism, and with everyone forced to buy, there is way more competition and lower prices all around

If u can't afford car insurance, you can simply elect not to drive and just walk/bike/pubtransit, etc.

If u can't afford health insurance, what does your plan leave you?

>>6
insurance is only really profitable under the idea that most people will pay for anyone but themselves.  as in, if most people pay more in insurance than they would have to pay for the actual healthcare they end up receiving, the insurance company can actually afford to settle the expensive claims by the small percentage of the population who actually do need it, and not go broke in the process.

insurance is little more than legalized gambling, really.  and i don't appreciate being forced to gamble any more than i appreciate being forced to pay for insurance.

>>6
>>7
You should be very careful before declaring what people should and shouldn't do, it is irresponsible to believe that because you have good intentions that you can never make mistakes.

Health insurance is not like car insurance, as >>7 pointed out, you choose whether to get a car so making people get car insurance before they use public roads is not a serious breach of their rights, on the other hand you don't choose whether to have a body or not so if you think everyone with a body should insure it you are essentially restricting people's choices.

What if someone comes up with a superior finance and management instrument for funding healthcare? Let's say private doctors decide to set up a clinic based on regular check ups and preventative measures rather than waiting for people to get ill and it turns out to be cheaper because the check ups and preventative measures are much cheaper than operations for serious illnesses in the long run. The problem is the state requires everyone to get insurance which means that people who want this cheaper alternative have to pay for it on top of their insurance and as a result the new superior healthcare that could save millions of lives and drastically improve everyone's quality of life never takes off because of the state sponsored monopolies using the socialist-statist thugs to stamp out competition.

Over here, taxes aren't theft or robbery, they're a community effort for common good. They also double as health insurance, by way of public health care.

It's been working for decades. And we really don't recognise ourselves in the monsters that those propaganda machines of yours keep brainwashing you people with.
The system has been failing as of late, not just cos our politicians seem to think "non-state" spells "satan" backwards or something, they also insist on cutting the wrong corners...

>>10
By abstracting out the cost from the service, public health care will essentially become "free" in the eyes of many people.  And even those who properly understand that there's still cost involved, will still treat it as a right rather than a privilege, since their tax money is going towards it.

This will lead to people using and abusing the system well beyond it's capabilities, whereas if their own wallets were on the line they would be more reasonable and driven by necessity.  Without such constraint, the inevitable result is that either the system will become so strained as to be practically useless, or taxes will need to be raised to ridiculous levels to ensure an acceptable quality of service for everyone nationwide.

Neither option appeals to me.

free market=free to bribe congress to pass legislation that allows denying more and more claims.

universal health=government is free to do what they see fit with your health

neither option works by itself, but if you combine a little socialism with laissez faire, the socialist part being legislation to regulate health care companies, but not excessively, then we may have a system that works.

all I know is that anyone who thinks pure capitalism can work is deluding themselves, same goes for socialism.

Single Payer is the only way to go

Free-marketeers are faggots who believe in an invisible hand in the sky the reallocates funds from one place to another

>>13
There's so many things wrong with this lazy, ill-informed, dizzy statement that I don't think I'll bother. Just go play some more Team Fortress 2 with your head up in the sky, everything will just work out fine.

>>14
excuse me

your a fagot

>>15
Cool story bro

Let's all get angry, and shoot eachother with caps lock.  I like the idea of the mix, because free market and socialized are both too extreme, and it's obvious that way, from what I had gotten from THIS video here http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/22/obama.health.care/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
Obama was saying that he wants to make a government backed healthcare COMPANY.

>>13
>>17
Sure, there are evil capitalists in top hats sporting gold watches on chains and monocles who regularly throw orphans out in the snow so they can afford a few more ivory, blood diamond and baby seal fur trinkets. However the 20th century has shown that socialisation doesn't result in the happer worker's paradise advertised, I'm not saying it's a slippery slope and we'll end up with hardcore Stalinism but there are certainly inherant problems with relying on bureaucracy and quotas to organise our healthcare. Most democrats are not leftist wingnut Obama fanatics who think Cuba is a socialist utopia, they are educated moderates who actually care about the practical implications of his policies and fully understand the limitations of these 19th century abstract political theories, sorry but Obama will never get this to pass unless he addresses these issues.

I favor a healthcare plan based on reforming regulation over banana-republicesque nationalisation, hospitals and doctor's practices need autonomy to function properly and serve their community's needs, this arrangement is also needed to seperate hospital management from political management thus lowering corruption and increasing efficiency by allowing specialisation. A similiar arrangement is characteristic of succesful small wealthy 1st world nations like Ireland, Belgium and Singapore which generally distinguish the roles of the state from the roles of the free market more rationally.

>>18
leftist wingnut Obama fanatics
Obama
educated moderates
educated

>>19
What?

>>1
Guess what, if you don't like private car insurance, you can buy a plan from the state.
So, basically, I agree with you.