Good ideas on health care reform

Glad to see the Journal has finally started running op-eds with proposals for solutions to the health care situation, rather than just storming against the Obamacare thing.

What I’ve seen that I really like:  Reforming and expanding Healthcare Savings Accounts, combined with high-deductible insurance policies.  And then providing health care stamps, analagous to food stamps, with which people who have legitimate financial need can fill their HSA.

This seems to me like a relatively efficient, manageable solution that offers a real possibility of helping the poor without undermining the many things that actually work in American healthcare.

I also, of course, am firmly convinced that we need pricing transparency.  Just no way you can run an efficient market when nobody even knows the product prices.

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One thing I’d like to argue about:  Saw a comment a week or so ago about how Americans, compared to other nations, spend the most on healthcare, but do not have the best health outcomes.  To which I’d observe:  If you are in poor health, you will spend more money on healthcare.

I believe our obesity rates alone probably explain a significant portion of the gap.  We as a nation choose to be in poorer health than we must, and then we choose to treat the health problems we give ourselves (understandably!).  No surprise the figures run as they do.

[There is also a significant amount of money spent on elective procedures such as cosmetic surgery that are may be bundled into our ‘healthcare expenses’, but have nothing to do with making people healthier.]

None of which is to deny that our health care situation has its problems.  Just that the raw statistics do not tell you what the problem really is.

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