President Barack Obama and Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear seem to be of like mind when it comes to expanding government's role in health insurance. A Cato Institute scholar has a better idea: getting the government to back off and encouraging health insurers to provide better coverage against the risk of getting sick.
From Investor's Business Daily:
"Government does a mediocre and costly job of basic simple services like garbage removal; government-provided health insurance is a certain recipe for expensive, inefficient and ossified health care."
"Government is not the only option. Markets can provide long-term, secure health insurance while enhancing choice and competition. Given the chance, they will."
"The key innovation is "health-status insurance." If a health shock causes your medical-insurance premiums to rise, it pays a lump-sum payment sufficient to pay the higher medical-insurance premiums. (To deter fraud, the payment goes into a special account that can only be used for medical insurance premiums.)"
"You can always purchase medical insurance with no change in out-of-pocket costs, and therefore have complete long-term health security."
"When people have health-status insurance, medical insurers can be turned loose to freely compete, even though they will charge higher premiums to those with long-term illnesses."
"Insurers will compete for the sickest patients, attracting them with better care rather than "cost containing" them, or denying them coverage for pre-existing conditions. Insurers will compete hard for the healthy patients too, giving us all better service at lower cost."
The whole article is worth a read. Getting out of the way and allowing greater consumer choice is the way to enhance freedom and prosperity. We've given the alternate approach too many opportunities to succeed already.
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