With congress grinding away on healthcare bills this article caught my eye. There are several interesting points that make sense to me. This one really hit home with me: '...the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.'
That and an MRI being a $1500 here and a hundred bucks in Japan. Wow.
My overly simple solutions:
* Make all risk sharing pools that cover basic needs non-profit. At the very least, give co-ops a meaningful advantage through tax code or some other mechanism.
* Require them to cover anyone who applies for the same price. I believe this will result in pushing the industry to look seriously at wellness and prevention.
* It bothered me when I asked a doctor, "How much does this cost?" and they couldn't answer my question. They then asked why it mattered to me since insurance was paying for it. So I'd like to see a cap what the insurance companies can pay so that everyone is responsible for a small fraction of every bill they generate. If I have to pay 1% or even 0.1% of my bills-- every bill-- you better believe I'll shop around.
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