Reimagining Healthcare

rsil

Everyone and their uncle is trying to capitalize on our broken healthcare system.  They think they can fix it. Even the techies think they have an answer.  They don’t.  Why?  It’s simple.  They are all trying to reimagine healthcare by leaving the insurance industry and the government in the equation.   That problem is unsolvable because they are the problem!   Now remove the insurance industry.  Remove the government.  Let’s say everyone has some catastrophic plan that is reasonable in cost.  You can’t tell me this is impossible to do. And let’s say that for a cheap monthly fee the only thing that is covered is after you pay $5000 of your own money (and maybe that is less depending on income).  Let me repeat that.  NOTHING IS COVERED!  Guess what would happen?  Patients would shop around.  Doctors would be paid in cash and the prices wold come down because there is no more coding, no more billing, no more accounts receivable.  Since overhead is less, the cost is less.  If doctors don’t lower their cost, patients will go elsewhere. Also, patients would only get prescriptions that are reasonable in cost.  The cost for diagnostic studies and MRIs come down. This is capitalism and it works.

Now why do I believe this?  Because I have seen it.  With high deductibles and health ministry plans, patients are shopping around.  They are doing it already and they are doing a great job at it!  I have helped them find lower costing medications by using services such as goodrx.com. I have found them a place to get a back MRI for $500.  I have found them a cardiologist center that does stress echoes for $225.  It is happening already and it puts the patient’s skin in the game.  And it turns out direct primary care works perfectly with this plan.  The problem is that all the savings are going to the insurance companies.

Remove the government and the insurance companies from healthcare. They do nothing and are not needed. Let’s change Obamacare to CatastophicCare* and we will make healthcare cheaper and better for everyone.  That’s Reimagining Healthcare.

*Sure, there are some details and minor glitches left out here but they are easy to fix and no plan is perfect.  But I would put this concept against any other idiotic plan out there that plans to remove doctors, reward insurance executives or let administrators be the gatekeepers of healthcare.