UNITING PHYSICIANS & PATIENTS AS A VOICE IN HEALTH CARE
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The second issue is making sure that everyone has the financial resources to afford health care. For the most part, we should not do this by using insurance; insurance is an appropriate way to pool risk for the unpredictable and unaffordable, but it is otherwise terribly inefficient and costly. We also shouldn't be providing our elderly and poor with defined benefits coverage (like Medicare and Medicaid), instead we should provide them with financial assistance as necessary for them to afford care. To understand why this change is necessary, think about how wasteful and inefficient the food stamps program would be if, instead of giving stamps to purchase foods, we had the poor go to the grocery store, pick out what they want, and then have the grocer collect payment from the government. Of course, this would dramatically reduce the choices, options and quality of the food we would find at the grocery store, cause conflicts between customers who want steak and grocers who want to give hamburger, and also dramatically increase administrative overhead - yet this is exactly how our current health care system works!
The key is allowing people to save and prepare for their future health care needs, while providing needs-based tax deductions, tax credits and financial assistance to those without other means to pay for care. As for health insurance, it should be like life, disability or long-term care insurance: owned by the beneficiary, permanent (not one year at a time), with benefit payments directly to the policyholder.
This may seem complicated, but it is desperately needed. It is disturbing when the best debate is a lame suggestion that we ask insurance companies to reduce administrative costs and that we expand costly government programs, along with a misinformed critique of consumer-driven health. If we really want to address health care reform, some bold and comprehensive ideas need to be put on the table.
David Allen
5710 Mt. Normandale Drive
Bloomington, Minnesota 55437
(952) 835-2009
dwallen@mn.rr.com
David Allen is a health care management consultant, President of the Minnesota Physician-Patient Alliance, and Chair of the Platform Committee for the Independence Party of Minnesota. The views in this letter, however, are his own.
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