Healthy, Wealthy & Wise
I went to a great lecture last night, where Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, introduced his new book, Healthy, Wealthy & Wise: Five Steps to a Better Healthcare System. Not alot in Glenn's book is new but what is striking is that the book is a clear and accessible assessment of what is wrong with the current system and an equally clear and simple plan to fix it that is eminently achievable. This is hardly a ponderous treatise, but a simple handbook on how to make progress (if you believe that progress means better outcomes) toward positive healthcare reform.
I won't go into too much of Glenn's arguments because the book really is a quick read, but there are some salient points to emphasize. First, our current healthcare system is not characterized by freely and correctly operating markets, so to say that markets have produced a failed system is wrong. Second, health insurance today is NOT insurance. What we call 'insurance' is actually government subsidized "pre-paid" healthcare spending. Freeing up insurance markets to offer actual, real insurance, not something just called 'insurance' will go along way to reducing the uninsured (tidbit: 30% of "the uninsured" make over $50,000 and choose not to purchase coverage, so alot of the problem of the uninsured is not because people are too poor but that people see no value in it). Furthermore, as people are free to make real choices about what kind of insurance they need, they are likely to opt for high-deductible, catastrophic policies, which will result in them taking higher wages (i.e. less compensation in the form of healthcare) which will be taxed. The incremental taxes from those increased wages, can fund government subsidies for the thorny problems of the chronically ill and the truly poor.
Helathcare is likely to be THE issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. This is a great place to start if you want to intelligently assess who is saying what.
UPDATE: In this article you can see how parts of Hubbard's plan are working their way into reform legislation around the country. Further proof that 1) innovative approaches and true reform actions are likely to come at the state level before the feds ever get a clue, and 2) that we need more folks like Dr. Tom Coburn in Washington.
I won't go into too much of Glenn's arguments because the book really is a quick read, but there are some salient points to emphasize. First, our current healthcare system is not characterized by freely and correctly operating markets, so to say that markets have produced a failed system is wrong. Second, health insurance today is NOT insurance. What we call 'insurance' is actually government subsidized "pre-paid" healthcare spending. Freeing up insurance markets to offer actual, real insurance, not something just called 'insurance' will go along way to reducing the uninsured (tidbit: 30% of "the uninsured" make over $50,000 and choose not to purchase coverage, so alot of the problem of the uninsured is not because people are too poor but that people see no value in it). Furthermore, as people are free to make real choices about what kind of insurance they need, they are likely to opt for high-deductible, catastrophic policies, which will result in them taking higher wages (i.e. less compensation in the form of healthcare) which will be taxed. The incremental taxes from those increased wages, can fund government subsidies for the thorny problems of the chronically ill and the truly poor.
Helathcare is likely to be THE issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. This is a great place to start if you want to intelligently assess who is saying what.
UPDATE: In this article you can see how parts of Hubbard's plan are working their way into reform legislation around the country. Further proof that 1) innovative approaches and true reform actions are likely to come at the state level before the feds ever get a clue, and 2) that we need more folks like Dr. Tom Coburn in Washington.
posted by Donny Baseball at 9:11 AM
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