Universal government plan would make health care affordable
11 03 08 - 11:34
By W. Frank Ward
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/11/08
Our elected and non-elected leaders have proposed numerous ideas for increasing health insurance coverage. However, no plan substantively deals with how to make health insurance more affordable while at the same time providing comprehensive coverage, which would encourage people to practice preventive care through regular checkups.
Most people don't have the discretionary income to put money aside. Hence, people wait until a problem for them or their children becomes acute and then, of course the costs becomes much higher.
The plan I have in mind will necessitate the cooperation of the government, health insurance companies, employers, consumers, doctors and the property and casualty insurance companies.
The first facet of the plan begins with every person under 65 in the United States (we will leave Medicare alone under the plan) being covered by a universal government plan at 100 percent from the first dollar to a maximum of $10,000. That includes office visits to their doctors, pharmaceutical costs, emergency room costs, etc.
Since the government is covering the first $10,000, it is superfluous for any private insurance company to offer a deductible on any of their plans for less than $10,000. As a result, every private plan starts off with a $10,000.00 deductible and from that point on, the private insurance company pays all costs at 100 percent.
What does the $10,000 deductible accomplish? It lowers the premiums drastically, making them much more affordable.
If the coverage from the government and the private insurance companies is now 100 percent, there is now no need for businesses to carry workers' compensation medical coverage. (Notice I did not include disability coverage. That remains as is.)
Businesses can now better afford to pay for their employees' medical coverage by using premiums they previously were paying for workers' compensation and because the premiums they will be paying for medical care would be far less than they had been before. We could return to the old fashioned doctor-patient relationship without an insurance clerk or government clerk telling the doctor how to practice medicine.
We will have to raise taxes to do this. However, that tax payment for most people will be mitigated because our medical premiums will have gone down quite a bit, and thus it could very well come out being a wash.
After all, what else is a medical premium but another type of tax?
> W. Frank Ward is a Marietta attorney and former health insurance agent.