Monday, June 18, 2012

Scherz and English on Health Insurance

In case you missed it, Dr. Hal Scherz and Dr. Jeffrey English of Docs4PatientCare had a piece in the 6/12/2012 TownHall.com, "Health Care Insurance is Not a Dirty Word".

They make the important point that what is now called "insurance" is actually badly managed pre-paid health care, and this is due to many years of bad government policy.

To move us toward genuine insurance, they suggest free-market reforms including:
...[R]emoving unnecessary mandates that insurance companies are required to have in healthcare policies and which differ in every state.
The tax treatment for health insurance policies should be the same whether the policy is purchased by an employer or by an individual.
Health Savings Accounts and high deductible insurance policies would make individuals better consumers because the financial implications of healthcare would be transparent and become their direct responsibility.
Free market ideas and products currently exist...
(Read the full text of "Health Care Insurance is Not a Dirty Word".)

Avik Roy also discusses the many problems with insurance regulations (and how that hurts patients) at his 5/21/2012 Forbes piece, "Putting the 'Insurance' Back in Health Insurance".

Finally, I discuss free-market insurance reforms in this piece from the Fall 2009 issue of The Objective Standard, "How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability".