Thursday, April 20, 2017

Repeal and Replace Only Half the Answer

There is a stigma developing in the United States against those who do not have health insurance and that stigma only makes the problem worse. It blinds one to the true problem and hinders the ability to find responsible productive solutions.

I mentioned to my friend the issue of requiring some level of health insurance to qualify to establishing an HSA; health savings account.

He is well insured through his work, yet opened into a rant against the policy. “When your kid is born you can set up an IRA for his education, you can set up IRA’s for almost anything but the government wont let you set up an HSA without buying health insurance…..”

What did Paul Ryan mean by the extension of HSA’s? Does his plan come anywhere near to the excellent plan envisioned by Ben Carson, a man embedded in the healthcare system until recently? A plan where everyone can invest freely in an HSA, funds transferrable among family members, where the family becomes their own healthcare insurance policy has captured the hearts and minds of the people of this nation.

And what of removing those lines around the states? When Paul Ryan mentions farmer’s and construction worker’s guild’s policies crossing the lines, are the changes he is referring to for only some professions and not others?

Who knows. One thing is certain, the American people have no reason to trust their politicians.

Most essential to healthcare reform is the establishment of a system that competes with health insurance providers.

Let us say we allow children to stay on their parents policy until 26. A couple’s child is 22. He has an HSA established from when he was born. His parents come to him and say, “Hey, we are paying $500 a month to keep you on our policy. How about we give you $300 a month for your HSA and we take you off the policy. Your HSA is already pretty large and you’re young…”

So $500 a month leaves the health insurance industrial complex and $300 more is set aside to empower the healthcare purchaser. The parent’s are getting a deal as, if the funds are transferrable between family members, there is in some scenario more money for their healthcare needs.

In fact, family HSA’s may become so large (due to length of investment and/or sudden death) that, if a person begins investing responsibly when young, a family may see no need for health insurance at all. When marrying and having children it may be wise to seek a stable job that provides insurance but otherwise it would be unnecessary. Then when one retires they can tap their HSA for Medicare supplemental policies. Or will Medicare even be necessary?

Life Insurance may also be a backup for one’s HSA as it can be tapped by the terminally ill to help with healthcare costs. With a substantial HSA and a good sized Life Insurance policy, many may see no need for health insurance.

These scenarios bring competition, market forces not only in the market for services, bringing costs down, but straight up against the healthcare insurance providers. The problem with healthcare is that it has become an incestuous cabal of healthcare providers, health insurance companies and government. These institutions are concerned only with their own profits and stature, and the people have been forgotten.

These and the following example below will bring the health insurance lobbyists to lobby for a better product because they are competing with people providing for themselves. Now let me tell you what I, as a common man, envision in regards to removing the lines around the states.

No lines. Now, let us say a church, which has limited members (needing health insurance) state by state, but has large numbers nation wide, sets up their own insurance company, much like our teachers did here in Wisconsin.

A member under their Church’s health insurance becomes sick. They pay their bills in cash, receiving the cash discount, because they submit their bills directly to their insurer, not through their healthcare provider. The insurer need only confirm that previous bills were paid before paying out for further bills.

The insurer being the Church, there are ministers and elders familiar with the congregation who know if the member is truly sick. In this way fraud is reduced. Those ensuring no fraud is being committed are not technically under the payroll of the insurer; their Church’s company. Yet another savings found in man’s ability to care for his fellow man without being told or forced to by law.

Now, if the policy is lacking, unable to cover all costs for the Church member, there is a built in crowd funding community to fill in for the costs of being severely ill.

But I do not know if anything I have described here is possible under the proposed replacement bill, which is promised to be passed after we pass the bill to take care of the health insurance companies. Is it any wonder that I and most Americans do not trust the government?

We, and the Freedom Caucus if I may speak for them, believe that putting off these changes, HSA’s and removing the lines as President Trump puts it, until later translates into putting them off forever.

President Trump is a business man. He can relate with businessmen in the insurance industry and understand their positions. But does he truly understand what has been perpetrated against the people by the health insurance industrial complex? How differently would these businessmen present their case to President Trump if the people had options other than health insurance to provide for their
healthcare?

The promise of removing the lines around the states and the ability to freely establish HSA’s are a very big issue among the people. They should be addressed first. If so the insurance company lobbyists will rush in with multiple ways to reform the health insurance system; reforms that will benefit the people.

It is just how I see it.

No comments: