There is so much wrong with the American healthcare system. It is hobbled by mandates, subsidies, price controls, and every manner of middleman standing between you and what you want.
Fixing all of this – and the bad regulations date back decades if not a full century – requires far more political courage that D.C. has mustered in my lifetime.
Or we could just take the easy route: let insurances offer to willing buyers whatever kinds of healthcare they want.
I explain this in the video below.
There were many bad features of Obamacare, as people are now fully discovering. It combined a mandate that insurers not discriminate against preexisting conditions with community pricing, factors which caused the so-called death spiral. It put too many restraints on competition across geographic lines. It imposed what amounts to a new tax.
But one of the worst features is hardly mentioned. It prepackaged what precisely must be insured, and allowed no room for flexibility. This is one reason premiums rose so much so fast. Insurers simply tallied up the benefits and the risks and dished out new terms. You had no choice in the matter.
We don’t do this in any other part of life. If you go to McDonald’s and ask for fries, they don’t say, “Sorry, we can’t sell those separately. You have to buy the double Quarter Pounder Value Meal with a dessert, or else we can’t sell you anything.”
My proposal is simple. Get rid of the government mandates over what can and cannot be part of what is called health insurance. Let consumers and insurers get together and decide this for themselves. This would immediately create a variety of new lower-priced options.
I explain more below.
