Mandatory Health Care?

Musings on the health care debate.We should start the current congressional action from scratch.

What if it were a federal law that everyone must buy/pay for health insurance? It could be financed by a federal health insurance premium (FHIP) of, as a wild guess, 3% pre-tax of ones pay in a given pay period. To keep from making it an income tax increase, all tax brackets would be lowered by the FHIP. Some far left liberals would say we couldn't lower the income tax rate that much but if W's tax cuts were cut off early and the rate reverted to what they were before that, those rates could be cut by the FHIP. The FHIP would come from all taxable income (and perhaps from some that may not be - like unemployment, welfare, social security, etc.). In the case of working couples, both would pay the FHIP and any children would be covered whether both parents work or not.

This would not be universal health insurance. There would be no government health insurance unless VA and Medicare/Medicaid) are retained. Everyone could keep the health insurance they now have. Health care insurance could be sold much like car insurance is sold.  Businesses would no longer need to provide health insurance unless they wanted to do so as an incentive, and it should not be taxed. To further help businesses, the FHIP could be sent to a federal fund from which the insurance companies claim their due. To fund the bureaucracy, there should be some programs that could be cut (say SCHIP?).

I do think it should be federal law that all citizens and legal immigrants are accepted by the insurance companies reqardless of pre-existing conditions and that all medically accepted procedures be covered. Insurance companies can save money by no longer needing underwriters to turn people down nor a whole department to turn down claims. In the event of a new or experimental procedure, a board of (retired) doctors makes the decision to cover it. People could still buy supplemental health insurance to cover co-pays and other out of pocket expenses. We could also help doctor's save money by having the amount of coverage by the insurance companies set by law, whether state or federal, and not paying so much overhead for different billings for different insurance companies.

While we're at it, malpractice settlements could be capped. I've seen one suggestion to cap them at five million. Whether this works or not seems to be debatable. Maybe someone knows if the states that have set limits have seen a decrease in health insurance premiums. Perhaps the doctor's malpractice premiums have gone down, but I've not seen evidence of the same for the rest of us.