Matthew Yglesias: Libertarians for Single-Payer Lite
Thought-provoking commentary from Matthew. Here's my take:
1. Catastrophic insurance universally. Paid for out of the general government fund.
2. To encourage preventative care, qualifying preventative visits would be pair for, on a sliding scale, based on income, on a fixed government price scale. So if you're real poor, you can get preventative care that will save the government money on the catastrophic stuff.
3. Likewise, a sliding scale for a drug plan.
4. Late-life health care costs are accrued against a senior's estate. The government can step in and take back a percentage of the health care cost. How's that for evil? ;)
5. Generic, across-the-board exemptions for all doctors from any form of medical malpractice suit. The appropriate mechanism for these complaints is the revocation of license, not the payment of damages. We can sweep the whole stupid problem away if we do this.
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Ross, both your and MY's
Ross, both your and MY's comments are good stuff. But MY misses one point that Milton Friedman makes: for his proposal to work employers will have to roll money they save on insurance costs into higher wages. Forgive me for not being confident that this will actually happen in most places.
I'm not sure that malpractice money is the real problem. Yes, malpractice insurance is expensive, and it saps energy from the system, but what good does it do a family who has been through a devastating and costly accidental loss to know that the doctor' won't do it to the next guy? I agree that punitive damages are out of control, but I don't think that eliminating cash damages is a good idea.