If Democrats had the spine of the Republicans as they passed war bill after war bill as casualties mounted, there is no doubt fully socialized single payer health insurance would have passed by now. Fortunately for America, Democrats, despite their enormous advantages, have bogged down in the face of determined criticism by the American right and center. However, this scorched earth rebuttal policy can only be successful if the Democrats remain vascillating.
The Democrats have provided an opening for we conservatives. Their own socialist base demands single payer socialized medicine and their proposals are ultimately designed to trick the nation into adopting it. Republicans should aggressively frame the debate that the genuine Democratic bill is in fact HR 676 a flat out socialization of medicine. Then, in contrast, they would offer the following set of reforms that would systematically re-introduce market forces back into health care.
Republicans would advocate a genuine free market system, and Democrats would be forced into advocating their socialist system. Both parties would put all of their cards onto the table and genuinely have it out. If it so happens the Democrats win, so be it, just, we would expect dentists would be rather busy as we would no doubt prefer to get our teeth worked on before the socialized system took effect. But we expect that a market based system would prevail, because it is better.
Fundamental to conservative health care reform is the recognization that the problems in our health system are not caused by the free market, but by the lack of it. We can develop proposals to introduce more market forces into health care that will both lower costs and improve care. Lower costs would automatically allow more people to re-enter the system, expanding the market, and further lowering costs. We do not need a public option.
Conservatives do not need to confine themselves with cries of armageddon with every health care proposal. Conservatives can have a genuine health care debate, and conservatives can win. The free market has prevailed whereever it has been tried.
Our present health care system fails because there is not much of a market in it. Healthy markets have shoppers and readily comparable commodities and our health care system has neither. All parties distort the economics of the system. Providers of technology are granted monopoly powers via patents and copyrights, which, incentivizes research, for sure, but it is fair to for customers to ask if there is more rent seeking than research incentives in various health technology providers. Offerings by insurers are opaque and capricious. There's really no meaningful way to compare what is offered by differing insurers. Even if there were, tax incentives, current risk pool allocations, and other forces all favor employer insurance over individual insurnace, leaving consumers not only unable to shop for insurance, but creates an artificial problem of pre-existing conditions, that need not exist at all.
Socialists have successfully confused the public into believing that because there is no market in health, one cannot exist at all. To address this, first and foremost, the very nature of health finance must be addressed. The cornerstone of a sane health care system would a different set of insurance products than those offered today. A good insurance would be essentially a financial instrument to hedge against the risk of catastrophic illness. You would pay a small premium, but if you get cancer, you get a check. The size of the check would be based on your risk of getting cancer and the coverage limit that you seek. From there, you could use your payout to shop around for care. If you think eating donuts might cure cancer, eat away. Your care and the financial responsibility of the insurance company would be unlinked. One could also create incentives to allow insurance policies for consumers to be commoditized. Commoditized policies would trade more openly and freely.
Presently health insurance is saddled with various regulations, bundling non-risk items into health insurance. This bundling forces health insurance companies to act essentially like mini-socialist entities, and as a result, like all socialist entities, they fail.
Real market health reform must admit that regular visits, immunizations, maternity, and more, would be out of pocket expenses. They are not risks! Insurance is a financial instrument, not a health arbiter. It's hard to say that there is a "risk" associated with having a child or visiting a doctor. There can be other financial products for health that can be used to manage costs of expensive things such as maternity. A simple but popular regulatory change Republicans could offer today, would be to eliminate tax penalties on 401k withdrawals used for health expenses. An even better change would be to eliminate capital gains taxes on any securities sale used to pay for health expenses. This simple reform would would allow people to carry higher deductibles, driving down insurance costs. Many states do not have sales taxes on food and vital necessities. Why the federal government would tax income dedicated to health expenses is utterly beyond us.
Artificial scarcity in our system needs to be addressed. The American Medical Association, while supposedly private, has become a defacto cartel by its ability to certify doctors. Real reform would allow for the creation of multiple medical certifying agencies. Stripped of any cartel power, medical certifying agencies would earn their keep by providing a mixture of certifying services, tests, and courseware, much as happens today in the various other technical fields.
Similarly, the length of patents and copyrights should be studied to determine if the temporary monopolies they create strike ideal balance between incenting a market and impeding it.
Trade and immigration reform can also help medical care. While the Treatyist is against allowing imported goods, in general, we are also pro-immigration. Doctors and health care providers from nations with solid educational systems should be allowed to easily emigrate to the United States. Offering a fasttracked citizenship for immigrant doctors willing to work in some areas would certainly help some areas.
Now is not the time for Republicans to go wobbly on free markets within American borders. Within our borders, free markets and private property remain the best way for goods and resources to be fairly allocated among the people. Markets work for every other manner of service and product, whereever they are tried, and they can work for health care as well. They have simply not been tried in modern times. It is time for conservatives to rally to the cause for genuine health care reform that will improve quality, lower costs, and bring more people more better care and better lives. It is time to make the health care system genuinely market based.
A commitment by conservatives to health care market based reform will certainly do more to end the present recession than any stimulus package or some sort of a resurrected WPA. By adopting the idea that sometimes markets cannot work, conservatives have unfortunately sent actors of consequence the message that their market may not be worth defending. This cancerous failure can be excized by making a strong stand for market based health care. We can tell the world, that, we believe in markets for not only our goods, but our health, and in doing so, send a strong signal that it is worth participating in them.