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Who Should Pay
While this is unquestionably a national crisis and will not be solved at the bargaining table, there is a movement afoot questioning the whole notion of employer paid insurance. These folks believe that companies would not only free themselves from ever increasing costs, many of which are being passed on to disgruntled employees, but they would also free employees to explore better job opportunities. I'll admit, when I first heard the notion, I was intrigued.
The basis of the argument is the handicap it places on not only the economy but on the costs of providing adequate care. Companies have been held back from expanding because of long term obligations to retired employees, many of whom are in good health. These costs are based on an average amount of care, whether healthy or not. These long term benefits should not be abolished but should change dramatically to include a mean test and some sort of voucher program for regular visits.
What struck home in particular was the file cabinet of ideas I have in the basement. In this archive of personal ingenuity, ideas have languished. Some, much to my disappointment have eventually been thought of by some other entrepreneurial type and taken down field to financial success. Why did I not pursue those or any of the other ideas in that cabinet? Health insurance. The prohibitive cost of losing that benefit for my family has stopped me cold in every instance. I have been working under the blanket of almost full coverage for over twenty years.
The possibility of lost opportunity, read lost wealth, can be according to these new age thinkers, a loss for the economic health of the country. The one hitch in slving this problem is the way we look at health insurance before we even calculate the cost of doing without.
Americans have seen great strides in the last several decades in medicine. This progress has brought us opportunities for a wider range of life lengthening and sustaining benefits, all of which come with high costs. The core of the health insurance dilemma is our over use of the system, our selective attitudes towards doctors and hospitals, and the failure of the industry to find a solution that will bring a more affordable product to market.
Employers could scale back to a basic plan that may encourage healthy employees with incentives that would offset the growing costs of care. The plan's participant's benefits could accrue in a separate account that would offset a need for increased coverage in upcoming years. Vouchers for Americans on a national level from competing health organizations would be purchased for basic care anywhere in the United States in non-emergency situations. This would bridge the gap that many young adults, some with families face as they transition from their parents home to the grown-up world of jobs, homes, and kids.
These plans will be costly at first but would probably stabilize with time as healthy individuals would become the low cost poster people for a low cost insurance. This is the perfect climate for a forward thinking candidate to step up and take this issue where it has never gone before. The climate is ripe for some new thinking that hits closer to home than a foreign war, a listless economic and jobs market, and the scandals on Wall Street. We'll just have to wait and see if someone will take this issue and run with it. The current plan can't go on as it is and ignoring it won't fix it.
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