On Health Insurance and Medical Coverage

The following thoughts are not based on health insurance underwriting statistics.  I have no idea where the exact percentages and dollar amounts make sense...I have no access to the medical and insurance facts that would lead to a logical, mathematical solution to the problem.

However, medical and governmental organizations that do have access to appropriate statistics could use the following guidelines to help set dollar amounts and create effective programs.  Where I am using dollars and percentages, I am only guessing.  Hopefully, it's a pretty good guess.

I am trying to set up a situation where the cost of health coverage could be shared between individuals, private insurance companies, medical organizations, state government, federal government, and private charities.



Since Medicare is already set up as a federal program, I will assume it continues to exist
as is, even though I will mention a potential change in a future post.  Right now, the
program I suggest would only cover an individual until age 65, when Medicare takes over.

The basic ideas of the program are...

     Everyone should have help available through affordable health insurance.

     Everyone should have "skin in the game" for medical expenses, in order to help keep
          the cost of the insurance down.

     No-one is entitled to an unlimited amount of other people's money to protect them
          from all risks in life.

     No-one should be forced to purchase health insurance, but the incentive to purchase
          it should be extremely persuasive.

     Each adult individual owns (and pays for) their health insurance plan, and takes it
          with them from job to job, similar to the way an employee takes a 401k plan
          from employer to employer.  Employers could offer employees an additional
          benefit above the normal pay, to help fund health insurance, but the plan
          would belong to the employee.

     Private charities could be organized to help pay for medical services for those without

          health insurance or those who have exhausted all private, state, and federal

          benefits.

     

     Hospitals should offer less expensive clinics to care for those without health

          insurance, who don't have life threatening emergencies.  Life threatening

          emergencies would still be taken care of in emergency rooms.

     To receive their licenses, doctors and medical organizations could be required
          to provide one free service for every twenty for-fee services they provide.



So, what would health insurance and coverage look like under these conditions?  The following post will give an idea of what might be possible.