"Whole"-some Health Care Reform

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

Excerpt:

1. Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).
   
2. Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits.
   
3. Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines.
   
4. Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
   
5. Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
   
6. Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost.
   
7. Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
   
8. Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
   

Comment: Wall Street Journal editorial. There's a nice Thatcher quote too: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money."

More:

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America