Thanks to Don Philips for sending this article for us to ponder. I agree that costs in health care are unchecked and a major problem. But the fixes are fraught with all kinds of difficult issues. I don’t think the solutions here will necessarily solve things, though they may help some.
By Douglas M. Parker in RINOcracy: “Jeff Bauer is a Medical Economist and Healthcare Futurist. We have been friends since we met several years ago on a transatlantic voyage, and Jeff is a previous contributor to RINOcracy.com. He submitted this essay at my invitation and I hope you will find it as interesting as I did.
“As a disaffected Democrat, I appreciate the opportunity to share my perspectives on Medicare for All (MfA) with Rinocracy’s disaffected Republicans. However, I can only address MfA in general; there’s no specific definition in proposals being discussed by presidential candidates, and nobody knows how the concept will evolve if a pro-MfA candidate occupies the White House and Democrats control Congress after the 2020 elections. All I can say is that the general concept is deeply flawed—and add that health reform proposals from the Party of Trump are at least as ill-conceived. Essential transformation of the way we deliver health care could be set back many years if either camp prevails in 2020 and subsequently delivers on its campaign promises. (For what it’s worth, the last four presidents have pursued health policies quite different from what they promised as candidates. Recent history would suggest that MfA is more likely to be implemented if Trump is re-elected, a bizarre possibility enhanced by his unpredictability.)