Changing HealthCare in America

Image Source
The Current US Health Care System
Our current system is a disaster. No two ways about it. Not a disaster like the one to our neighbors in the north or our old colonial overlords (more on them later), but a disaster where everything is too expensive and people don’t even know. I was not aware that 18% of US GDP went to healthcare. I knew it was a lot, but more than military and SOCIAL SECURITY combined? What? How is that even possible? Well, the US started with small town healthcare, super decentralized. However, after WW2, most big companies offered health insurance for free because the cost was not high. Then, things such as Medicare were passed, solidifying this system where almost nobody pays out of pocket. The 3rd party payer system is just so mind bogglingly strange. If you walk into a doctor’s office right now and outright question how much your visit will be, it is IMPOSSIBLE for them to tell you. They haggle back and forth with your insurance agent for MONTHS, because at the end of the day hospitals are charging you more than they should (because you don’t care), and the insurance companies don’t want to pay for all that extra stuff (because they don’t want to lose profits). Insurance companies don’t care about the medium in which you get care (8k hospital visit vs $100 urgent care), and in fact would probably prefer it if you got the more expensive treatment. I don’t know about you, but I am not super crazy about paying more for something that is of interchangeable quality.
The UK and Canada
Now healthcare is a disaster in the UK and Canada, but for entirely different reasons. The UK’s system is strange because they have a single, free healthcare system (the NHS), but they ALSO have private hospitals. The portion of the UK that has the money will go to the private hospitals and pay out of pocket, because in the vast majority of cases, they get better treatment. But, if you can’t pay, you can get healthcare for free. You just might be waiting for a long time and get subpar care. Canada, on the other hand, is a dumpster fire. Not only does the government provide free healthcare, but they make it ILLEGAL for anybody to get care privately. Doctor hands you a bill? Doctor goes to jail! So not only do you HAVE to get subpar care at a government facility, you HAVE to wait a long time for it because so is every other schmuck. A lot of Canadians will just come across the border to the US to get their procedure, because for as much flack our system gets, at least you don’t have to wait 6 months for the procedure.
The “Better” Way
Now Dr. Sean Flynn introduced me to an entirely new form of healthcare today, and I am really glad to hear about it. I have read into Whole Foods and found that they are a more philanthropic company than average, but I had no idea they had changed healthcare. To do so, they looked east (or west?) to Singapore. Singapore has an AWESOME healthcare system. They have 3 essentially failproof ways for their citizens to get healthcare. One of them is that it is extremely open market and competitive. People are responsible for the first $2,000 of their care, and 10% of the care beyond that. What does this mean? It means people have a fiscal responsibility to THEMSELVES to shop around and save. It means that doctors have a reputation to uphold, and must COMPETE with each other on price and quality. So, everything is out of pocket there, but it is REQUIRED for people to put a certain amount of their paychecks into these health savings accounts, which are your first line of defense for any medical care. But what about the people who get those treatments that are hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars? Well, the government put aside 5 billion dollars into essentially a mutual fund, and the interest and dividends of that pay out to the hospitals around the country. If you really can not afford to pay for the healthcare, you fill out a 1-page form and apply for a grant. Most of the time, the government gives it to you, and you get the exact same quality of care you would have with your own money. It is a foolproof system that encourages competition and saves billions of dollars.
The government of Indiana put their government employees on it, and like whole foods, saw a 35% drop in overall expenditure. They then put some people on Medicare on it, and what do you know, another 35% drop in spending. The way Whole Foods and Indiana do it is they GIFT you (in the form of a deposit into a health savings account) your entire deductible cost (1,800, 2,850, and 1,100, respectively) and say anything AFTER that we cover, but anything you DON’T spend is yours to keep. What ends up happening is people think more about their costs for healthcare and attempt to keep that money in their own pockets. It is GENIUS. I think the Whole Foods way is entirely doable across America, but I believe the biggest opposition is going to come from the insurance companies and the hospitals. Neither of them want to lose profit, and of course neither want to be transparent with the pricing at hospitals (because it will lose profit for them). However if we could mandate (through regulations) Hospitals and clinics to post prices of their services, we could start going a long way towards lowering costs overall.