A Healthcare Plan That May Actually Work

Updated on 8/3/2019. If you have already read this article, you can use this link to read the section that was added separately.

How did we get here?

One of the worst decisions we made was placing the burden of insurance costs on employers. This started as a recruiting tool for employers, ballooned into an employee expectation, and is now government mandated. Rising healthcare and insurance costs are calculated into wages which has led to worsening wage stagnation. This of course is not the only reason wages have stagnated, but it is an undeniable contributor. An even worse decision was for the federal government to try and handle the burden of almost half of healthcare costs annually— mainly the elderly and disabled who are by far the most expensive. We also seem to confuse healthcare “costs” with health insurance “costs”. These are not the same.

What would work better?

As an alternative, many have suggested a “single payer system”, where the government — by way of higher tax rates — acts as the sole payer of medical expenses for all citizens, but with that comes all of the costs associated with billing, negotiating prices, etc. Though this model is quite flawed and would likely result in national insolvency, one can find merit in a few of the axioms upon which the model has been built. Foremost…