Scott Adams has an interesting suggestion . . .

. . . for health care reform. I'm not at all convinced it's necessary, but at least it's more reasonable--and cheaper-- than many of the ideas proposed:

I think a better role for government would be shining a light on the existing private healthcare plans in a way that would help consumers choose the most economical option. The government did this successfully with the bank loan industry when it required all loans to have an APR, which is a single number that allows consumers to compare one loan to another. Healthcare can't be boiled down to a single number, but I suspect you could come up with a report card and some sort of average cost per subscriber. That way, consumers could shop wisely, and the free market might work the way it is meant to work.

Comments

[kyle8]

well certainly, if you also added allowing companies to compete across state lines and removed the unnecessary procedures that politicians added to bare bones policies.

Then the government could just buy insurance for the poor. It would be costly but not as costly as the current monstrosity they are considering.

[Brock]

Healthcare INSURANCE companies aren't that profitable. There's not a lot left to squeeze out of them. The problem is at the hospital/doctor level, and that's where Scott's suggestion would really come in handy.

There are 110 accredited care centers for cystic fibrosis in the United States. Do you know which one is the best? Where patients live the longest? Which charges the least? NO ONE knows the answer to these questions because they are not required to publish this information.

Without pricing or quality information, how is a market supposed to function?

[GeorgeJ]

One thing I think that we as citizens could do, and if I had the know-how I might would attempt it, is just upload our EOB's online. Sure, strip them of sensitive information, but publish them. They would have CPT codes, charges, payments, and adjustments. People could know who charges what for what service by location, and see what the differing payments were. There is such a lack of any transparency, I think such a move would add some insight to the current "debate."