Presenting a Libertarian Healthcare Bill

January 27, 2016

854

With the left and mainly Bernie Sanders trying to make a major push now towards expanding government yet again, it seems the old days of the cronyist ObamaCare are too mainstream for them. Now it’s the mission for single payer medicine. In making an obvious pitch on the failures of single payer medicine, looking at how the United States with its monopoly care system still exceeds most of the world in heart attack, cancer, HIV, diabetes and major accident survival rates despite having the highest obesity rate, it is okay to present the idea of America having a greater healthcare system currently. Also, examining the grossly poor budgeting skills of the Medicare office having projections for spending being 50% of what they are presently, it’s needed to say that more government in healthcare isn’t the best idea.

Looking at that though, it’s really hard to be the movement of bashing and not the movement of proposing ideas. I decided to make a nice little piece of what ideas a libertarian healthcare bill would actually go out to start and adopt. No, this won’t include abolishing Medicare, Medicaid or anything voters would call for revolution on if tampered with. Instead this list of proposals would be things that could actually be passed in a moderate Congress and still actually do a world of good.

With this list, I’ll be keeping it to five points.

Being able to import pharmaceutical products from anywhere in the world.

Whether it be medicine or medical equipment, America has found itself really the only country in the world where free trade or trade at all isn’t a thing. With medicine in America, it’s either made here by perverted hedge fund managers who try to gouge drugs for HIV patients; or it’s made by some hippie “doctor” as some magic bean which cures everything. So, the most basic reform is to let people buy from where they want to buy, and flood the market to global competition for medical equipment, pills and more.

In just showing how basic of a step this is, Rand Paul is behind it, but shockingly, Bernie Sanders has shown signs he’d be for it as well. This is an issue where, while the bought and paid for big pharma politicians might not get extremely behind it, the political pressure of the sheer proposal can move them.

This plan, opening up the markets to thousands of products which are currently being sold at a lower price, could in literally hours make massive reductions in American healthcare costs. It’s by far the most vital thing for reform and improving the American standard of living.

Deregulate health insurance.

The fact is this, in the current healthcare system people are stuck with plans that are simply too big. Current health insurance providers can’t offer a plan for younger and healthier people that’d be only accident care with orthopedics, and they can’t offer older people who can pay out of pocket for orthopedics emergency care options for more life threatening things to happen such as heart attacks, strokes, cancer or diabetes.

In the cost of healthcare, about 70% of costs are found in the majors (diabetes, cancer, etc) and only about 20% runs into accidents and accident recovery found with orthopedics. Doing this, the ability for a lesser regulated health insurance package could create a pricing vehicle where younger people show a latter for buying cheap accident care, and with age and their incomes rising, they hold on relative increases now just buying more secure plans and with further income do not focus on accident care.

Also, in deregulation, the plan would be to cut regulations on co-pays, initial fees and other rules found on how insurance companies can structure a plan.

Make Medicare not just a bad health grab bag.

Simplest pitch in the world: If someone is morbidly obese, a smoker or engaging in other behavior which could make them a ticking time bomb for future Medicare cost, actually tell them they need to be charged. If someone is going to smoke a pack a day, the least to ask for is paying 20% on any medical cost that can come with that. If someone who is obese, an alcoholic or anything of that nature, simply asking for future penalties is not the most unreasonable thing.

Also, the mission here is less about Medicare expenses, but more on curving of behavior. The case to reduce smoking or obesity in America is one to lower the entire cost of healthcare overall. If diabetes alone fell 10% that’d be a 1% price drop in insurance cost as a whole. This mission, while perhaps not the kindest to people with stresses or bad genetics, is still one needed to better everyone and end this reckless subsidy of bad behavior.

Deregulate the FDA.

The FDA has killed more people than any war in history. The act of having to wait a decade or more and spend a billion dollars to get a drug onto the market is absolutely insane. Also, compared to the 1990s, the current testing being done could give just as much information and understanding in five years as what ten years could do two decades prior. In every sense, this is just a regulatory hurdle to ensure the idea of a startup pharmaceutical company is nothing more than a thing of mystery.

For the actual FDA, the goal should be moving it to an assessment and awareness department where the focus isn’t denying any drugs access, but providing consumers and companies with the knowledge of the current level of risk by what it claims to do, what is in it and how much testing has been previously done. This moves the department to a point it can eventually be fully privatized with many competing groups with the same interest can be built. Labeling can remain law with levels of certainty marked on the product. This all can make some basic assurance of product for consumers.

The reduced cost and new motion of competition from this plan alone can be amazing for new surgeries, drugs and equipment to take the market.

Immigration of doctors.

Another simple pitch: If someone has an MD from an actual European or Asian university, let them into America, let them bring up to five people and let them all receive an automatic citizenship on day one. American doctors are already on a global scale the highest paid of any doctors on the planet. Letting other people come in to join them and scale down the price while improving quality with competition would be ideal.

Conclusion.

Overall, healthcare is a complex animal. This list of basic proposals wouldn’t be even a tenth of what libertarians could propose if they had some relative power in Washington. However, in growing, it’s better to actually have ideas over just being a movement of bashing. From IP to crossing state lines for insurance to tort reform, there are a hundred reforms to be made. This was just the most basic in how a real 10-20% short term healthcare cost deduction could happen.