• Healthcare Revisited – A simple solution to 2 problems

As the Democratic contenders vie for the nomination “Healthcare” is again one of the more significant topics. Medicare for all, private option and other variants are being proposed. My view is that no candidate is willing to confront the real issue with our broken healthcare system. I strongly believe that healthcare should be a right of citizenship and permanent residency. However, as a fiscal conservative I cannot support a solution that adds to our out of control National Debt.

When searching for solutions to any problem I favor two approaches. First, start by working “upstream”. By this I mean search for the cause of the problem. Once you determine that cause keep working on additional factors that are contributing to the it. The US has by far the highest cost of healthcare, per capita, of any country in the world. Our costs are almost three times the average for the EU countries without the corresponding benefit of better quality of care. What is causing the problem and why are we not addressing solutions?

There are several factors that contribute to out of control costs. Among them are the role of insurance companies, drug costs, hospital costs, physician compensation, obesity rates and legal factors. These areas have been thoroughly addressed in several earlier posts on this topic.

The second method that I advocate for problem solving is a technique called “base-lining”. What this means is to investigate other systems that are yielding positive results and learning how to benefit from the experience of others. There are several countries’ systems that are worth investigating that have a higher quality of care at less than half the per capita cost.

Solving the cost issue would more than cover the cost of proving healthcare for all and would also significantly reduce the out of balance national budget deficit. One solution to improve, if not solve, two problems.