Our health care system is too complicated and expensive to go back to a simple direct doctor-patient transaction. On the other hand, the current system of health insurance is leaving too many people without coverage, many of whom are receiving care in emergency rooms… the most expensive option for healthcare delivery!
We need a more efficient and streamlined system that ideally will expand basic medical coverage to all citizens without being a government program such as Medicare.
My suggestion:
- Make Medicare a state program rather than a federal one.
- Let each state determine a basic health policy ( or a couple of them) that best suits its population (rural vs urban for example)
- Each state would then ask private insurers to submit bids and the state then selects the best offers.
- Repeat the bidding process every 5 years.
- Offer this basic coverage to all citizens of the state “free of charge”. As we know, nothing is free, so there will be some taxes.
- Individuals and/or businesses can add supplemental options out of pocket.
- Eliminate Medicaid which will become redundant.
Probably not a perfect solution but this approach will provide universal coverage by creating a public-private partnership in which the role of the government is limited to making sure the system is working rather than delivering healthcare.