Issue Position: Advancing Healthcare

Issue Position

There is no more contentious issue in American politics today than the issue of healthcare reform, and that for a multitude of reasons. Healthcare is too expensive, both for consumers and for government. It breaks the budgets of states and families, and its expensiveness has life wrecking consequences for those who can't afford it.

Recent reforms to the health care system has eased some problems while worsening others. For many on the lower end of the income scale the subsidies made available by the Affordable Care Act (A.C.A.) will and are allowing them to purchase quality health insurance where in the past they might not have been able to. Also for those with preexisting conditions, the new regulations put in place by the A.C.A. are allowing them to buy insurance whereas before they were locked out of the market with terrible ramifications. These are positive developments. But the price at which they come is an increasing cost of premiums for many working and most middle class Americans and what is projected to be a massive new burden on the federal budget as a consequence of the reforms, as well as many other problems remaining to be solved.The A.C.A. is designed to hold down the premium cost increases anticipated to come as a result of mandating that health insurance companies cover people with preexisting conditions by facilitating competition through health insurance market exchanges and by mandating that all Americans purchase health insurance (thus insuring that younger Americans who bring little financial risk to insurers would enter the insurance pool, thereby lowering costs for everyone). The evidence thus far seems to indicate that these measures are not able to hold costs down as much as expanding coverage to high risk consumers tend to drive costs up. Even so, there are some simple reforms that can be implemented to help reduce current premiums. These include:

Pressuring prices downward by allowing health insurance companies to compete across state lines.

TORT reform: minimizing the expensive practice of "defensive medicine" (the ordering of unnecessary tests and procedures on the part of providers to insulate themselves from frivolous lawsuits) in order to hold down insurance costs.

These reforms would be important, but not sufficient factors to making the public and privates costs of medicine sustainable. A primary reason care is so expensive in our country is because we have a third party payer system of care. Governments and insurance companies pay providers for services, and so patients are not cost selective in the care they acquire, thus giving very little incentive for providers to innovate cheaper ways to provide care. In order push providers and insurance companies then to reduce service costs and premium costs, it is important for us to incentivize Americans to take on a greater role in paying for their own healthcare. Therefore:

Incentivize adoption of Health Savings Accounts, either through tax credits or through allowing the use of an H.S.A. to satisfy the requirement of the individual mandate enacted through the A.C.A to buy healthcare. Such accounts can be used to purchase low premium, catastrophic care insurance while purchasing less necessary care in the selective manner that will push costs down, and will push premiums down for all Americans.

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