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Saturday, January 29, 2011

An idea for medical insurance


Here is my idea for providing health care insurance for all Americans.

All people are provided a basic care package at the insurance provider of their choice. The price of this basic package will be the same for everyone and would be set by an industry/government panel sand re-evaluated periodically.

Anyone not making a choice of provide will be assigned to one or there could be a provider of last resort. (perhaps an industry pool type of provider?)

Any medical doctor or hospital would be able to provide basic level services to any patient. Insurance companies would not be able to force you to go to their preferred medical facility for basic care. They would be able to include stipulations on enhanced care treatments that you go to their preferred treatment facilities or use specified doctors.

Anyone wanting additional insurance is free to buy an enhanced package from any provider. If they buy a package (or one is given to them through their employment) then they pay the cost of the basic package in their enhanced package and are given a tax refund for the price of the basic package.

Insurance providers can offer any packages that they want. They will not be allowed to discriminate on pre-existing conditions but could implement a waiting period of up to a year before enhanced benefits would be payable. They would be able to offer preferred rates for non-smokers or other lifestyle choices and can price discriminate based on age. This would move the health insurance to a social basis rather than an actuarial basis. With enough people insured by any one provider the costs would average out and smaller providers can re-insure as necessary to spread the risk.

Any package that insurance providers offer has to be available to anyone. So if an insurance provider gives a company a good deal for 100 employees in a package, then they would have to offer the same deal to any group of 100 people, be it a company or just a group of people who join together to get a preferred rate.

The benefits are that everyone would get a basic health care package without regard for income, employment status, pre-existing medical conditions and it would be affordable to all. People would then still have the freedom to purchase additional insurance from the insurance provider of their choice.
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I always find it strange that only reasonable people agree with me.

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