No to any government interference in health care.
I have to support goverment intervention, the private sector failed. It is too hard to start up a new insurance company, so we now have a cartel of sorts that can charge whatever it wants. I'm not mad at them, they just want to get paid and I undestand that, but we all need to recognize that a system that allows them to do this is not a good one.
... The constitution says "Provide for the general welfare". I base a healthcare system on that premise.
Pieman makes some excellent observations on the disconnect between the patients and the payers. Let me start with some comments on the patient side.
The great success of modern health care over the last 50 years have greatly raised expectations by the public. I disagree that mere economic pressure will cause the consumers of health care to become sufficiently educated in their choices. Without that, the market fails. I also agree with John D. Ford's rough analysis of the impact on business - we do pay a price in competition because companies place this extra cost on their labor. This is another example of expectations getting so high that the market fails. A draconian solution would lead to a market crash - a collapse of the health care industry and the level of care that the country expects.
An analogy that might be useful is to compare health care to police security. If there is a crime, people expect an immediate and complete response from local government. They expect the use of best technology used to its complete extent by trained professionals. They recognize the limits of a locality to provide all the latest gadgetry, but expect that keeping up with national standards remains a high priority. Local residents also know that security can be augmented with higher government agencies and private suppliers of alarms and security personnel. Large companies may find it more cost effective to make extensive use of the private sector, even as local police forces are available and come when called. Oh, and did I mention accountability - local elected officials are usually very accountable.
What if medicine followed the same model? Counties or cities (maybe some states) could support the level and types of service that is appropriate for their residents. Counties and cities frequently run health departments now. The new expanded role would be in the form of a primary payer to government or private doctors and hospitals. Federal and state support for groups like the poor and elderly would provide some balance between counties with large indigent populations. Direct private insurance and health providers would still exist as enhancements available to those who choose the extra service.
The public as a whole would get the kind of improvement they expect without having to become expert consumers. Doctor could work in the public or private sector. The big insurers would seem to be the losers, but there would be nothing that prevents them from selling insurance products to governments providing the health care. Many governments maintain insurance for their varied activities now.
This might be an easier method to implement as well. Many existing structures would remain. Initial taxes would probably come from a mix of sources, but corporate taxes would be an important source since the goverment would be relieving the companies of the need to provide health insurance. The local nature of service allows smaller scale implementation, and avoids many pitfalls of national systems that are sometimes proposed. Even the EU doesn't provide a single health care system across all of Europe.
