It would take time. Government didn't just show up one day in the health care market, it has been weaving its way through the system incrementally. Removing it from HC would take a couple of years, that is, if you didn't want to shock the current system and have problems like the one you mention.
The best place to start is by increasing the number of practicing health care professionals and removing governments financial incentives to universities for limiting their enrollment in medical schools. Since it takes time to train new HC professionals, we should remove the immigration cap for 10-15 years on foreign born HC professionals to allow as many as possible to enter the country and gain citizenship - this also increases the tax base.
Remove all regulation of the insurance companies, drug companies, and Health Savings Accounts, leaving only the protections necessary to prevent them from committing fraud. Make all HSA's completely tax free. Encourage people to use HSA's to pay for out of pocket checkups and preventative care while maintaining a catastrophic care policy from insurance - That will remove the middle man in all but the biggest procedures and help to bring down costs of the most common procedures.
Change the tax structure regarding insurance. Buying it through our employers doesn't allow for mobility but purchasing a single policy can be far more expensive and taxes do play a role in that. Coupling HSA's and personal catastrophic care that doesn't come from your employer would make HC insurance as affordable and portable as car insurance.
Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines. Enact tort reform. Medicare/Medicaid and the prescription drug program (Medicare part D) all need to be drastically reformed but that's for another post.
Only through measures such as these can we bring down the cost of providing Health Care. Government measures are completely unable to bring down the cost of providing care, the best it can do is reduce expenditures on HC by rationing care, reducing services, and pushing cost overruns onto the debt.
ok. Where to begin....hmmmmm I read what you have posted and I partially agree with some of it. First off we need to invest in HC professionals from this country. Ones that are actually born here. While this country was founded by immigrants I feel that as of right now we need to invest in actual Americans and not ones that just got here. Second as for DE-regulation of the health insurance industry I agree with you on that however I feel that, should be decided on a state level and have the feds totally get out of the Health care profession. As for changing the tax structure with regards to health insurance we can do that but making it as affordable and portable as car insurance I don't know about that because wouldn't we make it mandatory in the end like car insurance? As for Purchasing insurance across state lines I think a lot of state insurance commissions would have heart burn over this because every state has a different set of reg's put into place to keep insurance premiums down to a minimum. So what might be good for Texas won't be good for lets say California. Tort reform now I agree with you on that and it should be enacted but I think the states can do a better job at tort reform then the federal government. I mean if the fed's enacted tort reform you can just imagine how screwed it could really be in the end? It's my opinion that Medicare/Medicaid and that other ugly monster Medicaid Part D need to go away. I mean why should we have to pay into something that non of use who are going to be working for the next 30 years or so will never benefit from? I love my grandparents but they have a nice fat pension between the two of them complete with health insurance and that is good enough for them. Why should they or anyone else for that matter within their age bracket get special treatment? Yeah they worked all of their lives for it but then again how many of us will get a nice retirement package like my grandparents got in the end? That's just my opinion.
BTW excuse me for not using the multi-quote button feature...I didn't want to bother with it.
