Continuing the Healthcare Discussion

Being new to this, I haven't posted in a while. A friend, http://civitasforus.blogspot.com/ got me stirred up enough to start writing. In his blog, he has talked about American healthcare: our shame. I read his article and did find it informative. I commented on his article which was a continuance of my last post. Since I talked about the Singapore program in my previous post, I think it appropriate that I should give some more detailed information.

The suggestion that I would propose is that we imitate Singapore's example. Singapore uses a Medical care saving's account program. In my proposal, each citizen would put in a nominal amount, say $2000, each year into a saving's account. The $2000 would be tax deductible. The account would be guaranteed to earn interest at a higher rate than other savings accounts, yet reasonable. Each time you go to the doctor, you would debit the amount from this account. The people that cannot afford the $2000will be subsidized. For catastrophic problems, insurance will be purchased by the individual, again those that cannot afford will be provided. Since these events cannot be reasonably foreseen, we can assume that each person has approximately the same risk, therefore, the price for the insurance will be the same for everyone. It can be seen that for the average person, assuming we have set the correct nominal amount, will easily cover a young person with plenty left over. This will grow over the years and will be able to provide for the higher costs later in life. After 70 the amount can be sued as the person sees fit. At death, the amount can be rolled into the account of a spouse, partner or children. The user of the savings account would be allowed the choice of any doctor. However, if a catastrophic event were to occur, one would be relegated to the doctor provided.This program would necessarily eliminate medicaid and maybe even medicare. The loss of both programs would probably be enough to foot the bill for those that cannot afford coverage and leave some extra for the deficit if the government so chooses. I think that both programs are huge albatrosses that need to be purged before they break the bank.In the end,

I think that the Singapore example would work great in the United States. Yes, there would be some wrinkles that would need to be ironed out, but those would be minor in comparison to the problems that we have now.

I think that with this program, much of the bureacracy and adminstration that was created with the current system could also be purged. At present, U. S. citizens spend as much per person on the administrative costs of our system as the British spend per person per year on their entire system.

If you would like to learn more about Singapore's terrific system, please go to http://www.ncpa.org/studies/s203/s203.html and http://rru.worldbank.org/publicpolicyjournal/summary.aspx?id=261

Thanks for reading
Economically Speaking

HEALTHCARE

Do we really want Hillary care version 2.0? There are better options. From experience, Australia's health care is not the way to go. They can't keep their doctors. The good ones come to the US to practice and make more money. The plan in Australia isn't free either, no matter what our media say. Those that can afford it get the best insurance and go to private hospitals for care. Those that are on the other system just sit around and wait for care. In Queensland, Dr. Death has made Health Care a big issue there.

I think we must look to Asia for our best answer. In particular, we can look to Singapore. With some tinkering, this can work for us in the US, too. We just have to be mindful to keep the politicians and the lobbyists hands out of the money jar.