Showing posts with label interstate insurance sales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interstate insurance sales. Show all posts

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Republicans don't have alternatives 'cause of special interests

As Obamacare takes on water, and a heavy list to port, the national punditry has been zinging the Republicans for failure to come up with an alternative to Obamacare. 
   That alternative is simple.  We need measures to bring down the sky high costs of US healthcare.  The US spending 19% of GNP on healthcare.  That's twice as much as every other country in the world.  And, as measured by infant mortality rates and life expectancy, US health is no better than, and in fact, not quite as good as, health in any other first world country.  For example  Canada, Britain, Germany,. Japan, France, Israel, Scandinavia, South Korea and others.   In short we are paying twice what we ought to.  If we could bring costs down by half, things would be a lot easier.  The uninsured could take a sick child to the doctor without entering bankruptcy. 
   Measures to bring down costs are well known.  It's just that well heeled special interest groups are dead set against 'em.  They like things the way they are.
   First off, we need to bring down the malpractice costs.  Malpractice insurance, which every MD has to carry, runs $100,000 a year in premiums.  At this point, any unfavorable outcome is malpractice. Any time the patient fails to recover, the doctor gets sued. The lawyers advertise on TV for plaintiffs.  We could adopt the English rule (loser pays court costs).  We could do what New Hampshire did, implement a special medical malpractice  court, we could forbid suits over FDA approved drugs.  We could forbid advertising for plaintiffs.  But, the lawyers are dead set against anything that cuts into their profits.  Most politicians are lawyers, which makes 'em shills or at best highly sympathetic to the lawyers arguments.
  Second, we need to bring down drug costs.  Big Pharma whips out scads of wonderful new curealls, and charges $100 a pill for 'em.  We ought to allow import of drugs from places like Canada, where the national health care system has forced the prices down out of the stratosphere.  Big Pharma is dead set against it.  Obama got their support (and kept Harry and Louise quiet) by promising Big Pharma, no imports.  In fact the government won't even bargain for better drug prices.  Allowing import of drugs would drop US drug prices by half.
   Third we could allow sale of health insurance across state lines.  Up here in New Hampshire, we only have ONE health insurance company, Anthem.  And guess what our rates are?  Anthem just told a third of the hospitals in the state to go out of business, 'cause Anthem won't do business with them any more.  Ought to be, that I can buy health insurance from any US company, no matter what state they are located in.  Naturally the insurance companies are dead set against this idea. 
  In short, special interests have forced up the cost of health care, and the Republicans lack the stones to work against them.