This is just some ideas that I pondered while hiking a few months ago. Obviously, this is well beyond my qualifications, but these seem to be very sensible. There are people here who would have some pretty good insight into pros/cons that I'd very much like to hear.
Barto's comprehensive medical reform:
More doctors:
Found the United States Medical College. There should be two paths to a career in medicine. If you're in a hurry to launch a lucrative career in anesthesiology or fake tit installation, pay your own way. If you'd rather trade time for money, go the governmental route. A person should be able to obtain an education in medicine in exchange for a set length of public service. Uncle Sammy picks up the tab and in exchange you do your residency where you're needed, followed by, let's say 6 years, practicing general medicine in a location where the service is needed. I suspect there are tons of people who'd operate a practice in the Regional Medical Center of Souther Bumfuck for 6 years in exchange for a free education. After you're hitch, you're free to do whatever you want.
And adequate supply of doctors alleviates many of the problems with the current situation.
Better billing:
The intentional obfuscation in medical billing is bullshit. The whole thing should be much more transparent. A person should be able to get a rough idea of what a tonsillectomy will run, barring complications. Furthermore, many of the things that happen at a hospital should be done at a fixed rate. I suspect the reason that a Bayer aspirin costs $7 is because they're subsidizing something else. More transparency. Also, the personnel who see you should be paid via the hospital. After my trip through the ICU, I received 20 different bills from doctors and technicians that I'd never heard of. The guy who checks the color of your piss shouldn't be sending you a bill for $45 on top of all the money the hospital wants.
Now, since the William Wallaces of the world would go ballistic if The Man dictated how a hospital operates, we set up a system of standards for billing and tie Medicare reimbursements to a hospital's level of compliance. Whether you get 92% or 104% depends upon how far you've gone to implement reasonable billing standards.
If there were actual pricing in health care, instead of everybody billing whatever the hell they want, you'd have actual competition, and that would alleviate many of the problems with the current situation.
Less malpractice damages:
Personally, I think the whole malpractice problem is a smokescreen. Yes, there are problems, but mostly it's an attempt to blame everything on lawyers instead of all of the other crooks in the business. Regardless, some reform is certainly in order. Reform should not include caps. Period. I think we can all agree that the guy who has his pecker amputated instead of a finger deserver's a helluva lot more than the $250k that the doctors and insurance guys want. However, an 89 year old guy who dies on the operating table shouldn't translate to an early retirement for his kids. My suggestion is government recommended damage guidelines. A jury could go over or under at their discretion, but they should be informed that the going rate for the issue in question is $129,364.07. My guess is that a jury won't award 27 million in that instance.
An added benefit is that a neutral party can explain to a jury that grampa only had a year or two left, and he wasn't providing any income anyway. There are reasons why damages exist, but I seriously doubt that the lawyers defending the hospital want to explain to a jury why Aunt Sally was really only worth about 6 grand.
No fraud:
Now if you want to talk about bloodsuckers bleeding the system, skip the trial lawyers and look for the people ripping off Medicare. That's a simple one. Get caught submitting phony bills and go to jail. No fines. No probation. 6 years federal time.
At this point, you've provided a massive increase in availability and competition. You've dealt with a great deal of the overhead and loss. I can't really envision a way that two hours in the hospital continues to cost 17k. If getting a broken arm repaired only costs $800 instead of $20k+, then you're not really going to have too much trouble sorting out who pays for it.
One thing that I haven't figured out is how to handle big pharm. This is certainly a huge part of the problem. I suspect more research being done on a grant basis might be key, but I really don't know.
Topic: Health Care Reform Declared Unconstitutional (Read 6600 times)
