A Health Care Solution
Townhall – Mona Charen – 3/23/2013
When the American people are
unhappy with a policy, they find a way to alter it.
Nearly every American is
intimately concerned with the delivery of health care. Choice and competition
can deliver what Americans desire -- a quality product at an affordable price.
The pre-Obamacare health
care system was not a free market for health care at all but a peculiar hybrid
with distorting incentives created by bad government policy.
Because it was a form of
compensation and not true insurance, health coverage became ever more expansive
and expensive. Employees were shielded from the true cost of what they were
consuming and accordingly failed to economize.
Over the past 30 years, 1800
mandates have been adopted, driving up the cost of insurance.
Smart conservative health
policy analysts have proposed a way to cut the Gordian knot -- Remove the tax
deduction for health insurance purchases from employers and give it to
individuals. . . . if individuals were given a $5,000 tax credit (fully
refundable for those below the poverty line) for the purchase of health
insurance, insurance companies would compete to provide excellent coverage for
$5,000.
" ... The essential
common element is a move toward consumer control. Individuals would become
active, cost-conscious consumers looking for value in the health care marketplace.
This shift would, in turn, create tremendous incentives for those delivering
medical services to find better and less expensive ways of caring for patients
and keeping them well."
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