ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
SHARE
It's not all that different from McCain's plan as a candidate, which was massively attacked.
The problem is the "redirecting the $300 billion annual tax subsidy for employment-based health insurance to individuals." Overall, people think that the system is broken but like their own current plan.
On health insurance, Obama ran against change for anyone happy with their current insurance. Of course, that makes it nearly impossible for him to pay for his plan.
I certainly prefer this approach over the mandate method.
However, this approach does not work toward dismantling the distortion caused by Government intervention. The tax subsidy allows insurance companies to get away with higher prices than they would if the subsidy did not... at least that's my opinion.
How do voucher plans address the "guaranteed issue" problem? Right now, employer health plans are guaranteed issue, which means if you get a job that comes with healthcare benefits, your actual state of health does not keep you from getting the insurance.
Individuals and families are very small risk pools, and insurers find all sorts of reasons to decline insurance to them, e.g. pre-existing conditions, state of health, etc. Not all such conditions are the fault of the individual - think cancer survivors.
So, how is addressed?
@tjames:
Caring for those who cannot be profitably insured is a charity issue. It's actually pretty easy to discuss the available options once you recognize that.
tjames, that could work if insurance companies were required to either accept every person that comes to them with a voucher or else accept no vouchers.
This makes sense to me, but I've read up on the subject. I think the main reason it won't go anywhere is because most people know nothing about health care policy. As a younger voter I've discussed health care with many of my peers and they all think what we have now is an unfettered free market in health care, which of course is false. They also seem to believe that "universal" health care would cure all of the health problems America has and usher in a new era of rainbows and unicorns. If anyone tried to explain this system to them (I've tried) they say "Isn't that what we have now" or call you a heartless conservative.
The moral of the story; the public needs to be better educated on the subject of health care, and then maybe more politicians will pay attention. Also, there's no such thing as unicorns.
Perhaps, it would be better the health care industry to be broken in two (or more in a more refined view) antagonistic sectors: a sector of diagnostic and preventive medicine rewarded by the number of right diagnostics and impact on local health indexes, being punished in terms of compensation by the excessive demand (inefficient path to diagnostic) of the second sector; and a sector of laboratories and specialities. Both would act as if they were disputing the same booty.