Healthcare Reform Ideas

1.     Reduce Cost of Care       

a.      Tort reform - limit malpractice liability suits to a formula – loss of life time income due to negligence x5 plus all medical, care and legal costs.

b.     Capital Equipment Acquisition Subsidies (MRI, Kidney Dialysis, X-ray, etc.).  This would provide hospitals with equipment based on needs of the surrounding population.  The equipment provided could not be billed for, only the service rendered.

c.      Tax Advantage Doctors, Pharmaceuticals and Hospitals who comply with service delivery cost goals (set by AMA & Insurance Providers) – (i.e. value of claims submitted are less than the published schedule – the delta would be rewarded in the form of a 30% tax credit.  In the case of non-profits, a 30% rebate on the savings.

2.     Reduce Insurance Costs – Promote Healthy Life Styles

a.      Voucher for Care – Government supplied voucher inversely proportionate to income level (lower income – higher voucher) the base value ($3,500 per person) of which could be exchanged for a traditional 80/20 PPO insurance policy with $20 copay and drug card + Long-term Care and Disability.  This would allow insurance companies to compete for the vouchers.  This also creates a single health care system not impacted by state boundaries.  Any Doctor, anywhere in the country (transportation costs aside).

b.     Disconnect employers from health care benefits – vouchers would do this

c.      Make all medical costs 100% deductible (no 2% and 7% thresholds)

d.     Provide Healthy Living tax credits – when claims made for the year are less than the voucher cost then a 30% of that difference would be provided as a tax credit back to the taxpayer

e.      Tax incent employers to offer Healthy Living plans like gym memberships, diet memberships (nutrisystems, weight watchers), etc. Since employers will no longer provide health care benefits they could easily sponsor these types of benefits.  A 10% to 30% tax credit would be provided based on the participation achieved. 

3.     Reduce Funding Cost to Government

a.      Eliminate Medicare/Medicaid – Voucher system would replace these programs.  Current Medicare tax would be used to help underwrite the new system and would be set to 5% for employers, employees 2.5%.  This would provide about $450 billion in funding a year (7.5% of national gross payroll).

b.     Tax Incent Cures – Provide substantial bounties / rewards for organizations finding cures for chronic and treatment costly diseases.  The rewards could range into the billions of dollars based on the magnitude of the cure in question.  This would spur innovation, accelerate research while paying for outcomes achieved.  This might even incent pharmaceuticals to engage in cure research instead of lifetime medication products.