Mediaboss Marketing

Dennis Heiman Published 10:11 a.m. PT June 2, 2017 | Updated 5 hours ago

Speak your piece(Photo: Record Searchlight)

Feeling great pressure to do something, the House Republicans have finally made good on their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Their plan, which now goes to the Senate, appears to be generally unacceptable to both sides of the aisle.

There will be lengthy debate and if something does pass out of the Senate, it is likely to be equally unacceptable. One possible upside of this debacle is that the time may have come to take a look around the world and perhaps come up with a better way to provide and fund healthcare.

I make no claim of expertise on the subject but it seems that logic would steer us in the direction of a single-payer, universal system.

For the Libertarians among us, this would not have to be a federal government run operation. Why not a private, nonprofit board of directors, occupied primarily by medical practitioners, business persons and entrepreneurs (i.e. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates types) with a couple of politicians thrown in?

The government would play the role of bill collector and paymaster, just as it does for other provided services wanted and needed by all (think fire, police, and military protection, education, highways, etc.), and as with those other provided services, there would also be an individual mandate to contribute payment.

Let's put an end to this idiotic notion that healthcare coverage should be a "pick and choose"menu as if people somehow have a pretty good idea what kind and how much healthcare they will need 30 years into the future, or the thought that men shouldn't have to pay for pregnancy care or women pay for prostate cancer treatment.

Decisions on the overall content and operation of the healthcare program would be made entirely by the board and its team of advisers. The private, for-profit insurance companies could pack it in and find another line of work (like selling real-estate or automobiles). Once the board has come up with a program to provide affordable health coverage for all, it could turn ots attention to the reasons (and solutions) to why healthcare in the U.S. is many times more costly than in other parts of the developed world.

Dennis Heiman lives in Palo Cedro.

Read or Share this story: http://reddingne.ws/2rNNPfU

Visit link:
A Libertarian solution to healthcare - Redding Record Searchlight