1) Make it legal for group health insurers to discriminate against fat people (and people with unhealthy lifestyles generally). Currently this is prohibited. The result is that both fat and healthy people pay the same premiums into the same pools, despite the fact that fat people are objectively more likely to make claims and withdraw money from the pool. Essentially, this amounts to subsidizing the overweight and irresponsible at the expense of the healthy and fit. Obviously, this constitutes moral hazard and has an explosive impact on costs. Legalizing discrimination in this area is simply common sense and would prevent the further ballooning of insurance costs.
2) Legalize all drugs and abolish FDA restrictions on pharmaceuticals. It makes no sense to say that a drug is "too risky" or "too unproven" since every individual's risk assessment is different. Many people may wish to use potentially dangerous or unproven drugs if such offered even the chance that their condition would heal or be significantly improved, rather than being condemned to their diseased state with no chance of escape. In addition, there are plenty of safe drugs that cost more because the company that produced them has to subject them to expensive and lengthy FDA trials. Getting rid of the restrictive FDA bureaucracy would increase the supply of drugs while decreasing costs associated with developing new drugs, thus driving down costs while allowing individuals to select drugs based on their own risk assessment rather than the arbitrary decision of an FDA bureaucrat.
3) Abolish mandatory government licensing of medical professionals. Medical licensing requirements are simply protectionist entry barriers designed to ensure high salaries and fee for existing doctors (many of whom are little more than highly-trained technicians) at the expense of consumers. Private accreditation boards would still exist to indicate quality, but the supply of physicians would no longer be artificially restricted as it is currently.
4) Abolish "certificate-of-need" restrictions on the construction of new medical facilities. If a hospital is truly "unneeded", it will fail on its own. These regulations are simply a way for incumbent providers to restrict competitors from entering the market and keep costs artificially high.
5) Repeal the HMO Act of 1973. HMO's increase costs by severely restricting consumer choices, which prevents patients from comparing prices between competing providers. There's no reason for the government to promote and mandate them.
Basically Sierra Leone health care.
