I'm being compared to a broken down car. Awesome.

Hey, my house burned down yesterday, so I need some home owners insurance.

Hey, I was diagnosed with cancer yesterday, I need to add a rider to my health insurance policy.

Hey, I died yesterday, I need some term life insurance.

The subject doesn't change the logic and it's not personal.

The point of insurance is to protect against future losses, not to remedy past ones. No idiot is going to put a homeowners policy on your house the day after grandma's old toaster blows up and burns it down, because the fire you're seeking a recovery for has already happened. But after you've built a new house, don't you think that same insurance company is going to happily let you pay them to protect you against future losses? Barring gross negligence or foul play on your part, of course.

The diagnosis of cancer happened previously, and no insurance company is going to cover you against the costs associated with diagnosing it, or any treatment costs before it was diagnosed, but shouldn't you be able to get protection against some of your future costs?

If you died yesterday, well, sorry. You're already dead. Nothing we can do about that.

Point being, insurance is to guard against future losses, not past. I know my condition will cost lots and lots of money over the course of my lifetime. It's not going to shorten it any if I take care of myself, but taking care of myself involves some pretty steep costs. When I was self-medicating and trying to find insurance, it wasn't to try and get someone to pay me out for what I'd already lost. It was to get some kind of protection against letting the costs of the condition become prohibitive and causing me to keep self-medicating forever, which would definitely have shortened my life by a lot. Maybe that means inventing a new class of insurance. Maybe that means riders attached to new policies that specify that costs associated with the pre-existing condition are covered at a different rate. Maybe people with qualifying pre-existing conditions get standard insurance for standard and unforeseen health costs, and anything associated with the known pre-existing conditions gets handled separately by some sort of Medicare/Medicaid deal. It's easy to disassociate and take the strictly libertarian "businesses can do what they want" position on healthcare, like you and I both do when it comes to cake, but there are two key differences. One, when you're talking about healthcare, you're talking about people's lives. When you're talking about cake, you're talking about cake. Two, if a cake shop doesn't want to make me a cake with (for example) a rainbow flag on it, I can just go to another cake shop. Because of how insurance is regulated, that isn't always possible in healthcare, and when all of the major providers are engaged in what amounts to collusion anyway when it comes to pre-existing conditions, the many are harmed. That's the point at which it slides away from the libertarian interpretation for me. If it were open market competition, you'd see insurance companies trying to find a way to include pre-existing conditions and capitalize on them. But it's not. The health insurance companies have agreed, either implicitly or complicitly, not to extend coverage to people who actually need it. That's collusion, and when competition turns into collusion that causes harm, it's the responsibility of the government to step in.

---

I'm being compared to a broken down car. Awesome.

Hey, my house burned down yesterday, so I need some home owners insurance.

Hey, I was diagnosed with cancer yesterday, I need to add a rider to my health insurance policy.

Hey, I died yesterday, I need some term life insurance.

The subject doesn't change the logic and it's not personal.

As TJ said, a house burning down and death are both discrete events that don't have ongoing costs.  The cost of a cancer diagnosis is totally open ended, as is the timeframe for it to be resolved (either with remission, hopefully, or, sadly, death). Could be three months. Could be 10 years.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Hey, my house burned down yesterday, so I need some home owners insurance.

Hey, I was diagnosed with cancer yesterday, I need to add a rider to my health insurance policy.

Hey, I died yesterday, I need some term life insurance.

The subject doesn't change the logic and it's not personal.

The point of insurance is to protect against future losses, not to remedy past ones. No idiot is going to put a homeowners policy on your house the day after grandma's old toaster blows up and burns it down, because the fire you're seeking a recovery for has already happened. But after you've built a new house, don't you think that same insurance company is going to happily let you pay them to protect you against future losses? Barring gross negligence or foul play on your part, of course.

The diagnosis of cancer happened previously, and no insurance company is going to cover you against the costs associated with diagnosing it, or any treatment costs before it was diagnosed, but shouldn't you be able to get protection against some of your future costs?

If you died yesterday, well, sorry. You're already dead. Nothing we can do about that.

Point being, insurance is to guard against future losses, not past. I know my condition will cost lots and lots of money over the course of my lifetime. It's not going to shorten it any if I take care of myself, but taking care of myself involves some pretty steep costs. When I was self-medicating and trying to find insurance, it wasn't to try and get someone to pay me out for what I'd already lost. It was to get some kind of protection against letting the costs of the condition become prohibitive and causing me to keep self-medicating forever, which would definitely have shortened my life by a lot. Maybe that means inventing a new class of insurance. Maybe that means riders attached to new policies that specify that costs associated with the pre-existing condition are covered at a different rate. Maybe people with qualifying pre-existing conditions get standard insurance for standard and unforeseen health costs, and anything associated with the known pre-existing conditions gets handled separately by some sort of Medicare/Medicaid deal. It's easy to disassociate and take the strictly libertarian "businesses can do what they want" position on healthcare, like you and I both do when it comes to cake, but there are two key differences. One, when you're talking about healthcare, you're talking about people's lives. When you're talking about cake, you're talking about cake. Two, if a cake shop doesn't want to make me a cake with (for example) a rainbow flag on it, I can just go to another cake shop. Because of how insurance is regulated, that isn't always possible in healthcare, and when all of the major providers are engaged in what amounts to collusion anyway when it comes to pre-existing conditions, the many are harmed. That's the point at which it slides away from the libertarian interpretation for me. If it were open market competition, you'd see insurance companies trying to find a way to include pre-existing conditions and capitalize on them. But it's not. The health insurance companies have agreed, either implicitly or complicitly, not to extend coverage to people who actually need it. That's collusion, and when competition turns into collusion that causes harm, it's the responsibility of the government to step in.

lol ... like flsprtsgod cares that you have cancer. Suck it up! God forbid a penny comes out of his pocket. Move to Australia!

---

The sun's not yellow, it's chicken.

The point of insurance is to protect against future losses, not to remedy past ones. No idiot is going to put a homeowners policy on your house the day after grandma's old toaster blows up and burns it down, because the fire you're seeking a recovery for has already happened. But after you've built a new house, don't you think that same insurance company is going to happily let you pay them to protect you against future losses? Barring gross negligence or foul play on your part, of course.

The diagnosis of cancer happened previously, and no insurance company is going to cover you against the costs associated with diagnosing it, or any treatment costs before it was diagnosed, but shouldn't you be able to get protection against some of your future costs?

If you died yesterday, well, sorry. You're already dead. Nothing we can do about that.

Point being, insurance is to guard against future losses, not past. I know my condition will cost lots and lots of money over the course of my lifetime. It's not going to shorten it any if I take care of myself, but taking care of myself involves some pretty steep costs. When I was self-medicating and trying to find insurance, it wasn't to try and get someone to pay me out for what I'd already lost. It was to get some kind of protection against letting the costs of the condition become prohibitive and causing me to keep self-medicating forever, which would definitely have shortened my life by a lot. Maybe that means inventing a new class of insurance. Maybe that means riders attached to new policies that specify that costs associated with the pre-existing condition are covered at a different rate. Maybe people with qualifying pre-existing conditions get standard insurance for standard and unforeseen health costs, and anything associated with the known pre-existing conditions gets handled separately by some sort of Medicare/Medicaid deal. It's easy to disassociate and take the strictly libertarian "businesses can do what they want" position on healthcare, like you and I both do when it comes to cake, but there are two key differences. One, when you're talking about healthcare, you're talking about people's lives. When you're talking about cake, you're talking about cake. Two, if a cake shop doesn't want to make me a cake with (for example) a rainbow flag on it, I can just go to another cake shop. Because of how insurance is regulated, that isn't always possible in healthcare, and when all of the major providers are engaged in what amounts to collusion anyway when it comes to pre-existing conditions, the many are harmed. That's the point at which it slides away from the libertarian interpretation for me. If it were open market competition, you'd see insurance companies trying to find a way to include pre-existing conditions and capitalize on them. But it's not. The health insurance companies have agreed, either implicitly or complicitly, not to extend coverage to people who actually need it. That's collusion, and when competition turns into collusion that causes harm, it's the responsibility of the government to step in.

lol ... like flsprtsgod cares that you have cancer. Suck it up! God forbid a penny comes out of his pocket. Move to Australia!

Do you ever have anything valuable to add to any conversation?

---

lol ... like flsprtsgod cares that you have cancer. Suck it up! God forbid a penny comes out of his pocket. Move to Australia!

Do you ever have anything valuable to add to any conversation?

There are times he doesn't reply.

---

The point of insurance is to protect against future losses, not to remedy past ones. No idiot is going to put a homeowners policy on your house the day after grandma's old toaster blows up and burns it down, because the fire you're seeking a recovery for has already happened. But after you've built a new house, don't you think that same insurance company is going to happily let you pay them to protect you against future losses? Barring gross negligence or foul play on your part, of course.

The diagnosis of cancer happened previously, and no insurance company is going to cover you against the costs associated with diagnosing it, or any treatment costs before it was diagnosed, but shouldn't you be able to get protection against some of your future costs?

If you died yesterday, well, sorry. You're already dead. Nothing we can do about that.

Point being, insurance is to guard against future losses, not past. I know my condition will cost lots and lots of money over the course of my lifetime. It's not going to shorten it any if I take care of myself, but taking care of myself involves some pretty steep costs. When I was self-medicating and trying to find insurance, it wasn't to try and get someone to pay me out for what I'd already lost. It was to get some kind of protection against letting the costs of the condition become prohibitive and causing me to keep self-medicating forever, which would definitely have shortened my life by a lot. Maybe that means inventing a new class of insurance. Maybe that means riders attached to new policies that specify that costs associated with the pre-existing condition are covered at a different rate. Maybe people with qualifying pre-existing conditions get standard insurance for standard and unforeseen health costs, and anything associated with the known pre-existing conditions gets handled separately by some sort of Medicare/Medicaid deal. It's easy to disassociate and take the strictly libertarian "businesses can do what they want" position on healthcare, like you and I both do when it comes to cake, but there are two key differences. One, when you're talking about healthcare, you're talking about people's lives. When you're talking about cake, you're talking about cake. Two, if a cake shop doesn't want to make me a cake with (for example) a rainbow flag on it, I can just go to another cake shop. Because of how insurance is regulated, that isn't always possible in healthcare, and when all of the major providers are engaged in what amounts to collusion anyway when it comes to pre-existing conditions, the many are harmed. That's the point at which it slides away from the libertarian interpretation for me. If it were open market competition, you'd see insurance companies trying to find a way to include pre-existing conditions and capitalize on them. But it's not. The health insurance companies have agreed, either implicitly or complicitly, not to extend coverage to people who actually need it. That's collusion, and when competition turns into collusion that causes harm, it's the responsibility of the government to step in.

lol ... like flsprtsgod cares that you have cancer. Suck it up! God forbid a penny comes out of his pocket. Move to Australia!

I care deeply that Bender is ill, though I might feel differently about you. That very inconsistency is why I shouldn't be involved in either of your healthcare concerns.

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

Hey, my house burned down yesterday, so I need some home owners insurance.

Hey, I was diagnosed with cancer yesterday, I need to add a rider to my health insurance policy.

Hey, I died yesterday, I need some term life insurance.

The subject doesn't change the logic and it's not personal.

The point of insurance is to protect against future losses, not to remedy past ones. No idiot is going to put a homeowners policy on your house the day after grandma's old toaster blows up and burns it down, because the fire you're seeking a recovery for has already happened. But after you've built a new house, don't you think that same insurance company is going to happily let you pay them to protect you against future losses? Barring gross negligence or foul play on your part, of course.

The diagnosis of cancer happened previously, and no insurance company is going to cover you against the costs associated with diagnosing it, or any treatment costs before it was diagnosed, but shouldn't you be able to get protection against some of your future costs?

If you died yesterday, well, sorry. You're already dead. Nothing we can do about that.

Point being, insurance is to guard against future losses, not past. I know my condition will cost lots and lots of money over the course of my lifetime. It's not going to shorten it any if I take care of myself, but taking care of myself involves some pretty steep costs. When I was self-medicating and trying to find insurance, it wasn't to try and get someone to pay me out for what I'd already lost. It was to get some kind of protection against letting the costs of the condition become prohibitive and causing me to keep self-medicating forever, which would definitely have shortened my life by a lot. Maybe that means inventing a new class of insurance. Maybe that means riders attached to new policies that specify that costs associated with the pre-existing condition are covered at a different rate. Maybe people with qualifying pre-existing conditions get standard insurance for standard and unforeseen health costs, and anything associated with the known pre-existing conditions gets handled separately by some sort of Medicare/Medicaid deal. It's easy to disassociate and take the strictly libertarian "businesses can do what they want" position on healthcare, like you and I both do when it comes to cake, but there are two key differences. One, when you're talking about healthcare, you're talking about people's lives. When you're talking about cake, you're talking about cake. Two, if a cake shop doesn't want to make me a cake with (for example) a rainbow flag on it, I can just go to another cake shop. Because of how insurance is regulated, that isn't always possible in healthcare, and when all of the major providers are engaged in what amounts to collusion anyway when it comes to pre-existing conditions, the many are harmed. That's the point at which it slides away from the libertarian interpretation for me. If it were open market competition, you'd see insurance companies trying to find a way to include pre-existing conditions and capitalize on them. But it's not. The health insurance companies have agreed, either implicitly or complicitly, not to extend coverage to people who actually need it. That's collusion, and when competition turns into collusion that causes harm, it's the responsibility of the government to step in.

I'm not saying the system doesn't need changing. I'm saying that going towards are more regulated, more controlled environment is moving the wrong direction. As you said, if the market were free to work then we would have market-based solutions. Yes, the government has a responsibility to enforce contracts, but beyond that it has no responsibility to provide services. And cake and healthcare are have zero differences, both are the government mandating that a free person conform to someone else's desire.

---

Hey, my house burned down yesterday, so I need some home owners insurance.

Hey, I was diagnosed with cancer yesterday, I need to add a rider to my health insurance policy.

Hey, I died yesterday, I need some term life insurance.

The subject doesn't change the logic and it's not personal.

The point of insurance is to protect against future losses, not to remedy past ones. No idiot is going to put a homeowners policy on your house the day after grandma's old toaster blows up and burns it down, because the fire you're seeking a recovery for has already happened. But after you've built a new house, don't you think that same insurance company is going to happily let you pay them to protect you against future losses? Barring gross negligence or foul play on your part, of course.

The diagnosis of cancer happened previously, and no insurance company is going to cover you against the costs associated with diagnosing it, or any treatment costs before it was diagnosed, but shouldn't you be able to get protection against some of your future costs?

If you died yesterday, well, sorry. You're already dead. Nothing we can do about that.

Point being, insurance is to guard against future losses, not past. I know my condition will cost lots and lots of money over the course of my lifetime. It's not going to shorten it any if I take care of myself, but taking care of myself involves some pretty steep costs. When I was self-medicating and trying to find insurance, it wasn't to try and get someone to pay me out for what I'd already lost. It was to get some kind of protection against letting the costs of the condition become prohibitive and causing me to keep self-medicating forever, which would definitely have shortened my life by a lot. Maybe that means inventing a new class of insurance. Maybe that means riders attached to new policies that specify that costs associated with the pre-existing condition are covered at a different rate. Maybe people with qualifying pre-existing conditions get standard insurance for standard and unforeseen health costs, and anything associated with the known pre-existing conditions gets handled separately by some sort of Medicare/Medicaid deal. It's easy to disassociate and take the strictly libertarian "businesses can do what they want" position on healthcare, like you and I both do when it comes to cake, but there are two key differences. One, when you're talking about healthcare, you're talking about people's lives. When you're talking about cake, you're talking about cake. Two, if a cake shop doesn't want to make me a cake with (for example) a rainbow flag on it, I can just go to another cake shop. Because of how insurance is regulated, that isn't always possible in healthcare, and when all of the major providers are engaged in what amounts to collusion anyway when it comes to pre-existing conditions, the many are harmed. That's the point at which it slides away from the libertarian interpretation for me. If it were open market competition, you'd see insurance companies trying to find a way to include pre-existing conditions and capitalize on them. But it's not. The health insurance companies have agreed, either implicitly or complicitly, not to extend coverage to people who actually need it. That's collusion, and when competition turns into collusion that causes harm, it's the responsibility of the government to step in.

I'm not saying the system doesn't need changing. I'm saying that going towards are more regulated, more controlled environment is moving the wrong direction. As you said, if the market were free to work then we would have market-based solutions. Yes, the government has a responsibility to enforce contracts, but beyond that it has no responsibility to provide services. And cake and healthcare are have zero differences, both are the government mandating that a free person conform to someone else's desire.

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as long as  you have the condition diagnosed prior to losing your healthcare, it should be able to transfer. Pre-existing conditions is a way of making sure people don't only sign up for health insurance once they need it. It shouldn't be a tool used by insurers to keep from paying what they should. The theory is that by having that as a risk, people will pay for insurance while they are healthy, which will allow the insurance companies to profit and/or build up a savings for the unhealthy years.

I wouldn't speak poorly of your situation; it sucks you are dealing with that. However, the goal is to keep people on insurance. Pre-existing conditions should not disqualify you from being insured as long as you keep an active policy (or within a few months of it expiring). Without a pre-existing conditions clause, how do you keep people from signing up only when they need it? If you have a better solution, I am all for it. I just haven't thought of one.

The goal isn't to keep people insured, the goal is to create the conditions for a free market. The question is not the middle ground between today and total government control as the title suggests, the question is how do we free the market to best serve everyone. Do that and we dont have to worry about keeping people on insurance, which isn't attainable anyway.

This is what I was attempting with my proposal. When I say the goal is to keep people insured, I mean simply that is the best conditions for insurance companies to thrive in the free market. Companies need years of insurance coverage with good health to mitigate years of bad health. Money doesn't grow on trees. The pre-existing conditions clause prevents people from signing up for insurance after they find out something bad has happened to them, but if insurance is cheap enough, the risk of being uninsured should be enough to encourage people to buy insurance before they need it. Like I said, I am not tied to the idea, but I haven't heard of anything better.

Under the system I proposed, health insurance should mirror car insurance. This is affordable. The stipend helps cover it. There should be little to no excuse for someone not to stay insured. If they get a pre-existing condition, they would go on medicare, just like what happens currently. 

My proposal would save nearly 200 billion from medicaid, encourage free market participation from doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies, and would keep medicare the same.

---

A free market almost always the best choice, but it provides no value to anyone unless the buyers and sellers each have good information about what they want and need, and an ability to predict what they will want and need in the forseeable future.
Cars work like this. So does food and housing. The only regulations there are merely to prevent poisonous or dangerous product from being sold alongside wholesome or safe product. We don't, and shouldn't, have the state organizing a buying scheme for houses, cars, and food for anyone except very poor or disabled people.

Health care never has worked like this and never will.

Minimal state intervention is possible, sure, but it does not unlock the market efficiency that it would in other sectors.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Your argument has faulty premises. The first is that assuming that because health care hasn't worked like that in the past, that it can't work like that. If car insurance worked like health insurance, you'd have to go through your insurance to change the air in your tire, get an oil change, or even get gas. Can you imagine the price of basic car maintenance if it were treated like health care? Driving a car would become completely unaffordable. My solution started with that idea in mind, then reworked health care to fit the model of car insurance. You haven't addressed where I have failed. Is there some kind of history that has already been tried where health insurance was limited to catastrophic injury? I'd be interested in the data.

The second, and much harder to prove, is that health care is one of the few areas that would work best under state control. That's just an assumption you are making. I don't need to accept either of those premises, at least not the way you just laid them out. More data please. Less rhetoric.

Tangentially speaking, I would prefer it if you criticized my suggestion with the goal of making it work OR give specific, verifiable instances why my plan is flawed (I'm sure there are weaknesses). I think one of the reasons that people can't accept new ideas is because it's easy to find a fault with something that isn't in place. Finding a fault does not discredit the entirety of the idea. The original question was how to blend national healthcare with a free market system. I have given it a lot of thought and this seems best to me. Again, if you can think of another way, I am all ears.

---

Your argument has faulty premises. The first is that assuming that because health care hasn't worked like that in the past, that it can't work like that. If car insurance worked like health insurance, you'd have to go through your insurance to change the air in your tire, get an oil change, or even get gas. Can you imagine the price of basic car maintenance if it were treated like health care? Driving a car would become completely unaffordable. My solution started with that idea in mind, then reworked health care to fit the model of car insurance. You haven't addressed where I have failed. Is there some kind of history that has already been tried where health insurance was limited to catastrophic injury? I'd be interested in the data.

The second, and much harder to prove, is that health care is one of the few areas that would work best under state control. That's just an assumption you are making. I don't need to accept either of those premises, at least not the way you just laid them out. More data please. Less rhetoric.

Tangentially speaking, I would prefer it if you criticized my suggestion with the goal of making it work OR give specific, verifiable instances why my plan is flawed (I'm sure there are weaknesses). I think one of the reasons that people can't accept new ideas is because it's easy to find a fault with something that isn't in place. Finding a fault does not discredit the entirety of the idea. The original question was how to blend national healthcare with a free market system. I have given it a lot of thought and this seems best to me. Again, if you can think of another way, I am all ears.

Regarding the part in bold, that has been my argument for many years.  Health insurance should be a guard in case of a catastrophic failure (illness or injury).  Health care or "insurance" should not pay for routine office visits.  People should pay for routine physicals or PAP smears out of pocket as well as minor injuries such as a cut that requires a few stitches.  People have gotten used to "my insurance pays for office visits" or "I only have to pay a $10 co-pay for a physical".  That's what drives prices up.

Expand the incentives and availability to open health savings accounts and expand the availability of catastrophic health insurance.

Bottom line... allow people to take care of themselves rather than rely on the government or some "insurance" company.

---

There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Your argument has faulty premises. The first is that assuming that because health care hasn't worked like that in the past, that it can't work like that. If car insurance worked like health insurance, you'd have to go through your insurance to change the air in your tire, get an oil change, or even get gas. Can you imagine the price of basic car maintenance if it were treated like health care? Driving a car would become completely unaffordable. My solution started with that idea in mind, then reworked health care to fit the model of car insurance. You haven't addressed where I have failed. Is there some kind of history that has already been tried where health insurance was limited to catastrophic injury? I'd be interested in the data.

The second, and much harder to prove, is that health care is one of the few areas that would work best under state control. That's just an assumption you are making. I don't need to accept either of those premises, at least not the way you just laid them out. More data please. Less rhetoric.

Tangentially speaking, I would prefer it if you criticized my suggestion with the goal of making it work OR give specific, verifiable instances why my plan is flawed (I'm sure there are weaknesses). I think one of the reasons that people can't accept new ideas is because it's easy to find a fault with something that isn't in place. Finding a fault does not discredit the entirety of the idea. The original question was how to blend national healthcare with a free market system. I have given it a lot of thought and this seems best to me. Again, if you can think of another way, I am all ears.

Regarding the part in bold, that has been my argument for many years.  Health insurance should be a guard in case of a catastrophic failure (illness or injury).  Health care or "insurance" should not pay for routine office visits.  People should pay for routine physicals or PAP smears out of pocket as well as minor injuries such as a cut that requires a few stitches.  People have gotten used to "my insurance pays for office visits" or "I only have to pay a $10 co-pay for a physical".  That's what drives prices up.

Expand the incentives and availability to open health savings accounts and expand the availability of catastrophic health insurance.

Bottom line... allow people to take care of themselves rather than rely on the government or some "insurance" company.

I'm sympathetic to the argument that people should pay up front for the small stuff when the small stuff is affordable to them.

with small dollar amounts, and needs that most people typically have, like simple physicals and vaccinations, I think you can expect a mostly free-market to behave rationally and efficiently.

But most of health care is not the small stuff.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Your argument has faulty premises. The first is that assuming that because health care hasn't worked like that in the past, that it can't work like that. If car insurance worked like health insurance, you'd have to go through your insurance to change the air in your tire, get an oil change, or even get gas. Can you imagine the price of basic car maintenance if it were treated like health care? Driving a car would become completely unaffordable. My solution started with that idea in mind, then reworked health care to fit the model of car insurance. You haven't addressed where I have failed. Is there some kind of history that has already been tried where health insurance was limited to catastrophic injury? I'd be interested in the data.

The second, and much harder to prove, is that health care is one of the few areas that would work best under state control. That's just an assumption you are making. I don't need to accept either of those premises, at least not the way you just laid them out. More data please. Less rhetoric.

Tangentially speaking, I would prefer it if you criticized my suggestion with the goal of making it work OR give specific, verifiable instances why my plan is flawed (I'm sure there are weaknesses). I think one of the reasons that people can't accept new ideas is because it's easy to find a fault with something that isn't in place. Finding a fault does not discredit the entirety of the idea. The original question was how to blend national healthcare with a free market system. I have given it a lot of thought and this seems best to me. Again, if you can think of another way, I am all ears.

You've successfully knocked down the straw man version of my argument.
I don't know where in my post I appealed to how things have worked in the past.
My first premise is that free markets are good because they create efficiency. the invisible hand causes close to the right amount of supply to meet nearly the right amount of demand. It rewards innovators who finds new ways to deliver at the desired product at a lower cost.
My next premise is that it only works that way when the buyers and sellers both understand exactly what they want today, and what they will want in the foreseeable future.
When the buyer shows up with extremely incomplete information, and the seller is telling the buyer that he will literally die if he doesn't do what the seller says, the free market no longer performs efficiently, or optimally, or however else you want to describe the goodness of the free market.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

My next premise is that it only works that way when the buyers and sellers both understand exactly what they want today, and what they will want in the foreseeable future.

Buyers want affordable health care. Sellers want customers. Both parties know what they want. One of my primary concerns with liberal economics is they think that anyone uneducated will fall flat on their face. That's not how people operate. People will figure out what is in their best interest.

When the buyer shows up with extremely incomplete information, and the seller is telling the buyer that he will literally die if he doesn't do what the seller says, the free market no longer performs efficiently, or optimally, or however else you want to describe the goodness of the free market.

Removing insurance from the primary interaction between doctors and patients will drive health care costs down, not because patients are informed, but because doctors are. They will compete against one another, which will benefit the patient. The patient only needs to know which doctor is suits their particular need. Those who want customer service will pay for it, and those who want the best bang for their buck can look for it. We have the legal system to help weed out those doctors who are grossly negligent.  The government should focus on creating a competitive environment, insulate itself from corporate interference, and punish those who prey on the weak. Pretty much the exact opposite of what's happening now. 
Also, just to rebuke your point, neither of the above are necessarily available in a socialized health care system. There is no guarantee both parties will have access to all information (in fact, it would be less likely in a government monopoly) AND there are no alternatives.

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My next premise is that it only works that way when the buyers and sellers both understand exactly what they want today, and what they will want in the foreseeable future.

Buyers want affordable health care. Sellers want customers. Both parties know what they want. One of my primary concerns with liberal economics is they think that anyone uneducated will fall flat on their face. That's not how people operate. People will figure out what is in their best interest.

When the buyer shows up with extremely incomplete information, and the seller is telling the buyer that he will literally die if he doesn't do what the seller says, the free market no longer performs efficiently, or optimally, or however else you want to describe the goodness of the free market.

Removing insurance from the primary interaction between doctors and patients will drive health care costs down, not because patients are informed, but because doctors are. They will compete against one another, which will benefit the patient. The patient only needs to know which doctor is suits their particular need. Those who want customer service will pay for it, and those who want the best bang for their buck can look for it. We have the legal system to help weed out those doctors who are grossly negligent.  The government should focus on creating a competitive environment, insulate itself from corporate interference, and punish those who prey on the weak. Pretty much the exact opposite of what's happening now. 
Also, just to rebuke your point, neither of the above are necessarily available in a socialized health care system. There is no guarantee both parties will have access to all information (in fact, it would be less likely in a government monopoly) AND there are no alternatives.

Consumers lacking the ability to understand their own healthcare is one reason that the free market does not improve healthcare.
Involving the government more will not suddenly make people understand stuff that you need years of medical school to understand, I agree. I don't think the government would fix that problem.
But involving them more will help prevent people from buying stuff that will not improve their lives, and it will help make sure that the treatments that do improve lives are affordable for all of the people who would benefit from them.
I also think you could have a bigger role for the government without eliminating alternatives.
In Canada or in England if you want more than what the government provides, sucks to be you, go to another country.
But in Germany, or France, or Switzerland the government provides a minimum amount of care and you can buy more, or faster, or more luxurious, if you think that's a good use of your money.

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My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

It's like modern healthcare was created in a vacuum to some people.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

All I can say is, when I was new to my current insurance I was not covered for a year for my preexisting condition of anxiety and depression and had to pay cash every month to see my doctor. $93 per visit. After my insurance decided I was "worthy" of coverage I had a $60 co-pay and they (the provider) charged my insurance company $255 per visit on top of the co-pay. That's over $300 for the same dang visit. Something is wrong with this picture.

I currently see an alternative medicine doctor/chiropractor who refuses to take insurance because of all the BS and red tape involved and He doesn't want insurance companies telling him how to treat his patients. He charges what a typical specialist co-pay is and that is covered by my flexible spending account.

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Buyers want affordable health care. Sellers want customers. Both parties know what they want. One of my primary concerns with liberal economics is they think that anyone uneducated will fall flat on their face. That's not how people operate. People will figure out what is in their best interest.



Removing insurance from the primary interaction between doctors and patients will drive health care costs down, not because patients are informed, but because doctors are. They will compete against one another, which will benefit the patient. The patient only needs to know which doctor is suits their particular need. Those who want customer service will pay for it, and those who want the best bang for their buck can look for it. We have the legal system to help weed out those doctors who are grossly negligent.  The government should focus on creating a competitive environment, insulate itself from corporate interference, and punish those who prey on the weak. Pretty much the exact opposite of what's happening now. 
Also, just to rebuke your point, neither of the above are necessarily available in a socialized health care system. There is no guarantee both parties will have access to all information (in fact, it would be less likely in a government monopoly) AND there are no alternatives.

Consumers lacking the ability to understand their own healthcare is one reason that the free market does not improve healthcare.
Involving the government more will not suddenly make people understand stuff that you need years of medical school to understand, I agree. I don't think the government would fix that problem.
But involving them more will help prevent people from buying stuff that will not improve their lives, and it will help make sure that the treatments that do improve lives are affordable for all of the people who would benefit from them.
I also think you could have a bigger role for the government without eliminating alternatives.
In Canada or in England if you want more than what the government provides, sucks to be you, go to another country.
But in Germany, or France, or Switzerland the government provides a minimum amount of care and you can buy more, or faster, or more luxurious, if you think that's a good use of your money.

So let me get this straight.  The same government monopoly that was given tens of thousands of dollars and 13 years for my education failed to make me competent enough to understand my own healthcare.  So your solution is to put the same government monopoly in charge of said healthcare decisions?  In what world is this logical?  Self interested people with the ability to hold providers accountable do better making their own decisions than unaccountable bureaucrats.  The answer is more transparency and consumer education, not an even bigger curtain of the state that isn't governed by any real standard of honesty (Barrack Obama would have been jailed if her were a CEO of a private healthcare company.)  

I also find it interesting that, more often than not, interventionists never actually take the time to evaluate the results of intervention.  Every wart or freckle in a market result can be analyzed dissected and stated as a call to action.  Then when the government intervenes, MAKES THINGS WORSE, we blame the market?  Accreditation, Licensure, and the AMA have very little to do with a true free market economy and they account for hundreds of thousands of dollars blocking the entry of intellectual capital into medicine.   

Economics is the rationing of scarce resources.  On a fundamental level, the biggest driver in the cost of someone to cut into your chest and fix a heart valve is that there are only  few people who know how to do it.  There's only so much any "system" is going to mitigate that economic reality.  

When you look at healthcare, like any good or service, the price is also a reflection of the amounts of resources that go into bringing that product to market.  In this case we have: The actual cost of care, the cost of the Insurance bureaucracy, and the cost of the government bureaucracy.  The basic fallacy with interventionists is that somehow dramatically increasing the size of the government bureaucracy is somehow going to reduce the cost of the underlying good or service which basically defies economics.  At current, just so the administrators between the care provider, the state and the insurance companies can talk to each other people get full college degrees in billing and coding.  It takes a decade in some cases to bring certain drugs to the market.  Those are massive massive costs that are absorbed by the consumer that don't actually go into the pocket of care providers.  If you really want to reduce costs then we have to mitigate those extra expenses.  

What's the best way to do that?  Let providers develop their own risk pools. There are lots of consierge practices and cooperatives that are set up where instead of paying a premium to a third party insurance company for the majority of your healthcare, you pay a monthly membership fee to the doctor and go when needed.  This saves tons of money in cost of compliance alone.  And we couple that with CATASTROPHIC INSURANCE for the cancer diagnosis or major illness that the average person can't pay for.

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All I can say is, when I was new to my current insurance I was not covered for a year for my preexisting condition of anxiety and depression and had to pay cash every month to see my doctor. $93 per visit. After my insurance decided I was "worthy" of coverage I had a $60 co-pay and they (the provider) charged my insurance company $255 per visit on top of the co-pay. That's over $300 for the same dang visit. Something is wrong with this picture.

I currently see an alternative medicine doctor/chiropractor who refuses to take insurance because of all the BS and red tape involved and He doesn't want insurance companies telling him how to treat his patients. He charges what a typical specialist co-pay is and that is covered by my flexible spending account.

I've seen the same thing. Doctors just don't want to deal with insurance companies.

There is a trend around the beaches area where doctors are going away from insurance to a direct primary care club. The primary care team charges a monthly rate whether you see them or not and with no co-pay. Basic and preventative care is included at no charge. It is essentially bringing the traditional insurance model to micro level.

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Consumers lacking the ability to understand their own healthcare is one reason that the free market does not improve healthcare.
Involving the government more will not suddenly make people understand stuff that you need years of medical school to understand, I agree. I don't think the government would fix that problem.
But involving them more will help prevent people from buying stuff that will not improve their lives, and it will help make sure that the treatments that do improve lives are affordable for all of the people who would benefit from them.
I also think you could have a bigger role for the government without eliminating alternatives.
In Canada or in England if you want more than what the government provides, sucks to be you, go to another country.
But in Germany, or France, or Switzerland the government provides a minimum amount of care and you can buy more, or faster, or more luxurious, if you think that's a good use of your money.

So let me get this straight.  The same government monopoly that was given tens of thousands of dollars and 13 years for my education failed to make me competent enough to understand my own healthcare.  So your solution is to put the same government monopoly in charge of said healthcare decisions?  In what world is this logical?  Self interested people with the ability to hold providers accountable do better making their own decisions than unaccountable bureaucrats.  The answer is more transparency and consumer education, not an even bigger curtain of the state that isn't governed by any real standard of honesty (Barrack Obama would have been jailed if her were a CEO of a private healthcare company.)  

I also find it interesting that, more often than not, interventionists never actually take the time to evaluate the results of intervention.  Every wart or freckle in a market result can be analyzed dissected and stated as a call to action.  Then when the government intervenes, MAKES THINGS WORSE, we blame the market?  Accreditation, Licensure, and the AMA have very little to do with a true free market economy and they account for hundreds of thousands of dollars blocking the entry of intellectual capital into medicine.   

Economics is the rationing of scarce resources.  On a fundamental level, the biggest driver in the cost of someone to cut into your chest and fix a heart valve is that there are only  few people who know how to do it.  There's only so much any "system" is going to mitigate that economic reality.  

When you look at healthcare, like any good or service, the price is also a reflection of the amounts of resources that go into bringing that product to market.  In this case we have: The actual cost of care, the cost of the Insurance bureaucracy, and the cost of the government bureaucracy.  The basic fallacy with interventionists is that somehow dramatically increasing the size of the government bureaucracy is somehow going to reduce the cost of the underlying good or service which basically defies economics.  At current, just so the administrators between the care provider, the state and the insurance companies can talk to each other people get full college degrees in billing and coding.  It takes a decade in some cases to bring certain drugs to the market.  Those are massive massive costs that are absorbed by the consumer that don't actually go into the pocket of care providers.  If you really want to reduce costs then we have to mitigate those extra expenses.  

What's the best way to do that?  Let providers develop their own risk pools. There are lots of consierge practices and cooperatives that are set up where instead of paying a premium to a third party insurance company for the majority of your healthcare, you pay a monthly membership fee to the doctor and go when needed.  This saves tons of money in cost of compliance alone.  And we couple that with CATASTROPHIC INSURANCE for the cancer diagnosis or major illness that the average person can't pay for.

I think your comment about education is garbage.  You don't seriously want primary and secondary schools to be tasked with bringing an average person's knowledge of medicine up to where they could compete with an expert, so why bring it up?
Yes, I think average people could rely on one expert to be their advocate against other experts.  That's how class action lawsuits and many other things in law work.
I agree with you about the AMA and how needlessly difficult they make it to practice medicine.  I agree that drives a lot of cost increase.  But flsportgod hated that idea when I brought it up, said I wanted a "C student" to operate on me next time I had a problem.
I agree with you that steering more people towards catastrophic plans can help lower expenditures while minimally changing outcomes.
I don't agree that concierge care is going to improve anything for anyone besides an elite few.
I think your brain is contaminated with the "government as a bogeyman" meme and you need to work on that.  The public school teacher is not the same type of person as the police officer, and neither of them are the same type of person as a judge or a city manager.  Yet they all work for the government.  Governments are really bad at certain tasks, but they are really good at other tasks.  Experience around the world shows that governments help keep costs down and quality in health care.  Just because the Fed's interventions in housing and education have been convoluted busts doesn't mean that health care would be.
All I want the government to do is
-make it so Americans pay prices for prescription drugs that are similar to what Canadians and Europeans pay
-make it so people only pay a certain % of their income in health care premiums and deductibles, and insurance can't turn anyone down
-make it so you can keep whatever health plan you're on when you change employers - the plan is tied just to you, not the employer
in that order.

Most of your objections are not really relevant to any of these three goals, and there are various ways the government could achieve them, whether by directly taking stuff over, starting new publicly owned operations to compete with what exists in the private sector today, offering vouchers, etc.

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My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.