Comments by "Zach B" (@zachb1706) on "Stossel: The medical system is stupidly bad" video.

Well the idea is that costs overall will drop. Hospitals will no longer be working with large insurance companies - or the government, who have massive bank accounts and the ability to pay exuberant prices. Instead they will be working with individuals who have a limited ability to pay and thus prices will have to scale. Mt favourite idea is a hybrid public private system. You can choose to be covered or not, and you will pay a base fee. This will cover basic things, like emergencies, GP visits, mental health. Some things won’t be fully paid for but rather subsidised. Everyone pays the same amount. On top of this you can choose a private supplementary plan, which can offer extra benefits. It will be in conjunction with the public insurance. Things like ambulance insurance, dental, or anything else not covered by the government system.
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It’s not the free market at all. You have insurance companies, lawyers, and huge government regulation. Let alone the huge regulations that stop hospitals from competing. Imagine if you went to go buy McDonald’s, but you had to wait for your insurance company to negotiate a price, and decide for you what you get. It’s almost as bad as a full blown Medicare for all plan - because then it isn’t you, it’s the government that decides
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The reason some doctors don’t take insurance is money. If an insurance company demands too low of a rate, that doctor will say no.
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I believe the best system would be government subsidised care. Not full blown Medicare for all, but the government pays a set rate on care, and the patient pays the rest. Let’s say you need heart surgery, the government might pay a fixed rate of $10k. If you choose to go for a better doctor, you would pay that big extra (say the better doctor charged $15k). What does this solve? It leaves healthcare somewhat within the free market, but it also fixes prices around a set point. And people have to pay for their care - so they have still got that incentive to stay healthy
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@johnharvey9112 I said that we get rid of insurance companies, and instead have government “subsidised care”, where the government pays a fixed rate and the consumer can negotiate the quality of care themselves
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@johnharvey9112 and a insurance/uninsured/Medicaid/Medicare/VA system is free market? My system protects poor people, while also still giving the free market the option to innovate and profit. In Australia, that’s essentially what happens. The government will partially cover the costs of public healthcare.
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@johnharvey9112 a no cure no pay system wouldn’t matter in my system. You can select your doctors yourself, not the insurance companies. Bad doctors will get less business, and good doctors will be able to charge more.
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@johnharvey9112 my system wouldn’t need a single payer system, not would it need a private insurance. It’s a subsidised free market system, you decide your treatment and you pay the extra.
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@johnharvey9112 do you know what else single payer does? It drives down the quality of care, drives away new treatments (often times it takes years for new treatments to come in), and it drives up waiting times. I want a system that supports low income families, but still provides a free market system devoid of insurance companies and huge regulation. At the moment, we have a mess, a d the solution isn’t single payer.
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@johnharvey9112 a no cure no pay system would drive hospitals away from diseases with a low chance of survival - like some cancers. It would also mean hospitals wouldn’t use experimental treatments that could save someone’s life.
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