[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by Blueblaze

The solution is the same one that was working pretty well 30 years ago when a doctor's visit was $15 and if you had insurance to pay for it, you had to file for it.

In other words, CAPITALISM.

The solution is for Americans to wake up from their fantasy that "free stuff" exists, that gooberment is the solution to every problem, and that the gooberment's money comes from somewhere other than their own pocket. It would also be a big help if people weren't so stupid as to believe that insurance can possibly work to pay for every day expenses rather than catastrophes.

On the day that stupid people quit being stupid, here's how I would unwind the current farce.

1. Add the cost of employer medical benefits to employee income and tax it at the same rate, to end the idiotic link between employment and insurance that the gooberment created.

2. Outlaw as insurance fraud the scam of selling insurance policies for ordinary, everyday expenses, such as doctor visits, car repairs, roof replacements, and groceries.

3. Make it illegal for a practitioner of any sort to deal directly with an insurance company. Require the insured to file their claims AND PAY THE BILLS, to restore their interest in containing the costs.

3. Disband the doctor's union (AMA) to defeat their primary purpose, which is to limit the number of practitioners (the same as any union). Or at least, forbid them from engaging in that practice. Create a federal agency to monitor and publish the complaints and outcomes, to enable the market to remove incompetent doctors.

4. Require all medical facilities and practitioners to publish a complete list of their rates and fees, easily accessible to all patients.

5. Prohibit lawyers from advertising. Pass meaningful tort reform that limits punitive damages and requires plaintiff to pay the cost of frivolous claims.

6. Overhaul the Patent Office. Restore patents to 7 years, as originally intended, and prevent it from allowing patents on new uses for an old drug, or other such ruses for artificially increasing the monopoly period for new discoveries.

7. Overhaul the FDA. Eliminate the FDA's ability to ban anything. It should merely test and publish results, and should be required to complete that testing within one year. Prescriptions should be advisory, not mandatory, as they are in most other countries. You should not need buy a doctor's permission every 6 months for your asthma medicine.

9. End Obamacare, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pay back with interest the money that was confiscated from retirees for Medicare over their working lives, so they can use that money to purchase their own catastrophic major medical insurance on the open market.

10. In order to reduce the cost of becoming a doctor, prohibit any educational institution that receives federal funding from raising their tuitions and fees beyond the federally-published inflation rate.

And, by the way, I'll quit spelling it that way when it goes back to governing instead of goobering.

I would add that the patient should always be required to make a copay for any medical treatment, to encourage competition among medical providers. Under the current system, patients don't care how much the treatment costs when it is covered 100 percent by insurance.