Citizens everywhere desire unrestricted access to state-of-the-art technologies. Increasingly, they insist on choice and control, too. Yet they are unwilling to pay what those things cost. People demand as a right the best health care money can buy, delivered in the way that best suits them, expense be damned. All that, and the price must be affordable.
Nowhere can this self-contradictory demand be satisfied.
…Consumer-driven health care, supplemented with generous subsidies for those with low incomes, is at least worth a try.
The entire article is very consistent with the views in my forthcoming book.
Another instance of minds that think alike comes from Tim Harford.
when Rogers’ condition was diagnosed, the government could simply have written her a cheque for GBP100,000 – or whatever was the likely cost of a standard treatment. She would have discussed with her doctor how best to spend it on the open market for healthcare – guided by advisory books, magazines and websites.
See my idea for insurance that reimburses events, described here and also mentioned in my forthcoming book.
READER COMMENTS
Robert Schwartz
Mar 12 2006 at 10:11am
Clive has nailed it.
R.J. Lehmann
Mar 12 2006 at 2:23pm
Dr. Kling,
The idea for what you call “event reimbursement” insurance is already common on the market in the form of supplemental accident insurance. Despite its name, there are “accident” policies geared toward medical diagnoses as well, with perhaps the most successful being the cancer policy sold by AFLAC.
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