Where can There Be Compromise on Health Care

Legislatively, we are at an impasse on this topic, while many voters are agitating for a solution.   The Tea Party no doubt, while basically non-vocal at this stage, want a return to what we had before Heritage Foundation/Romney/ObamaCare while Progressives want a Single Payer Plan.  Neither is likely to see this Congress pass anything that will make them happy.  Which means they will be unhappy.

It would have been nice to see Congress really working on a solution that would solve the real source of unhappiness with HF/R/ObamaCare:  the high cost of health insurance and high deductibles. Unfortunately, high deductibles are the only way insurance companies can control the cost and if you reduce the deductibles, you will increase the cost, and vice versa.

A Michael Strain, who I believe is an economist on faculty somewhere, wrote a column for Bloomberg News on a possible path to bridging this impasse and bringing some real relief to the mass of voters on this issue.

HIs idea is the following:  Republicans need to acknowledge that universal coverage is the right goal, but it has to be affordable to both households and the government.   This means there has to be a carrot to get young people to buy insurance and there must be coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.  There must also be subsidies to make insurance affordable.

Democrats will need to acknowledge that catastrophic health insurance is health insurance and that to reduce this economic conundrum between premiums and deductibles, you need to bring some choice into the equation.  His idea is that preventive care and other forms of routine care, be the responsibility of the policyholders to pay. This is essentially what is already happening with the high deductibles.  The trick is to figure out a way to get make the total package affordable to the working poor and those with pre-existing conditions who end up in a high risk pool.

I would add to this, that long term care for elderly and long-term disabled, be separated from Medicaid so that there is a clear picture of what is basically a very different problem from what the cost of providing Health Care to the working poor.

The author's basic premise is that people need insurance for protection against Catastrophic health developments, but insurance cannot pay for all routine care, for those with money, and be affordable when some people will abuse that coverage.  That is where the Progressives must compromise in return for the acknowledgement that Universal Coverage will be obtained in the form of affordable catastrophic health insurance.

The trick of course will be what is the dollar value of catastrophic coverage for each income level.  A working middle class family will struggle with a value of $5,000 while an upper middle class person might be comfortable with a $25,000 value.  As a retired person, pre-Medicare, I don't think I would be comfortable with anything much greater than the $7,000 my current health insurance has as a max-out-of-pocket.  And that insurance is costing me almost $500 a month for myself.

Anyway, I ran this by RedStateVT and he saw merit in it.  I see merit in it.  Will politician's?  The author is not betting on it anytime soon.