Dr. Ben Carson, in America the Beautiful, has an interesting suggestion as regarding healthcare in America.
His reasoning goes something like this:
(1) Close to half of our healthcare dollars are spent on healthcare provided within the last six months of patients' lives.
(2) It is this enormous expense that has driven up the cost of private healthcare policies.
(3) The problem could be obviated by freeing healthcare-insurance companies from providing any catastrophic coverage.
(4) The government, in turn, would have a "catastrophic health-care fund" to provide for precisely such matters.
(5) This would be funded by "allow[ing] insurance companies a 15 percent annual profit, 5 percent of which would go to the government's national catastrophic health-care fund." (Presumably, this is intended to mean 5 percent of the total, or 33 1/3 percent--not 5 percent of the 15 percent, or 0.75 percent.)
I am somewhat noncommital as concerning this suggestion. On one level, it does make some sense: If insurance companies did not have to spend so much money on paying for catastrophic care (including end-of-life care), private healthcare insurance could be much less expensive--and therefore, much more affordable for many.
On the other hand, I am less than thrilled with the idea of the government's being allowed to dictate the profit margins of private companies. (Dr. Carson sees this as analogous to the government's regulation of utilities.)
Comments?
