How to fix Obamacare by using Obamacare
E. Thomas McClanahanI’ve read all sorts of articles over the last few months on how to deal with the Obamacare disaster. Here’s a blog post that discusses one of the more intriguing. The idea is to use Obamacare’s main provisions — the insurance exchanges — as a vehicle for changing Obamacare into a market-based system similar to what the Swiss have.
Basically, the Swiss system is based on private insurance, although the available policies are regulated. There’s no Medicare or Medicaid. Seniors and low-income people get subsidies to buy insurance. The range of offerings in the exchanges is much broader than the handful Obamacare will have.
From the post, by James Pethokoukis: “Call it the Swiss Option. Switzerland has high-quality, universal health care coverage — yet the Swiss government only spends 40% of what the US government does. No single payer, no public option. Instead, the Swiss choose from a wide variety of private, though regulated, insurance plans. There’s an individual mandate to be insured, and subsidies help the low income and elderly. Nothing like Medicare and Medicaid. About a third of the country gets subsidies. … While hardly a libertarian fantasy land, the Swiss have … ‘the most market-oriented healthcare system in the West.’”
A smart concept worth exploring further, and no doubt those lower costs result from the Swiss system’s competitive nature.
Democrats are already distancing themselves from Obamacare, as a recent Senate hearing revealed. Plus, it’s increasingly likely that with so many states declining to set up their own exchanges, the feds won’t be able to jump into the breech in time to get the exchanges up and running by next year. There could be an opportunity to delay the law’s implementation, which means more people could be open to revisiting some of its key provisions.
Matt Henry
2 months, 4 weeks agoThe problem is, of course, that our leaders are not interested in universal coverage at a reasonable rate, no matter what the mechanisms. Their goals are control of the system and egalitarianism and those things are not necessarily compatible with those same goals.
The Democrat party has spent the last 50 years creating classes of people who are dependent on their largesse. Why is it such a stretch to understand that this is exactly what they are trying to accomplish, in nuclear form, in this case?
Mark Hastert
2 months, 4 weeks ago“Democrats are already distancing themselves from Obamacare,”…..
….even as Republicans are embracing it. Gov Scott of FLA, long a vociferous opponent, has accepted the expansion of Medicaid because he “knows it’s the right thing to do” Slow learners…..
George Hunsucker
Northland
2 months, 4 weeks agoScott is basically being a whore here taking 3 years of free Medicaid with no intention of continuing after 3 years… yet, predictably, the libs praise this….
Come on zero care!!!!
Mark Hastert
2 months, 4 weeks ago“Scott is basically being a whore”…
I love it when the Teas eat their young….
George Hunsucker
Northland
2 months, 4 weeks agoAs I said, the libs praise it… thanks for making my point