Right. And also ease some of the more burdensome regulatory requirements -- the ones that resulted in the cancellation of so many millions of policies under Obamacare. If the market can be opened up in terms of what insurance plans are allowed to offer, then that will ease a lot of the difficulties as well.
The compromise part is still going to involve figuring out what to do with the people who fall through the cracks, though -- for example, coverage for pre-existing conditions, which was one of those places where the Republicans got absolutely waxed on the failed plan.
In this state there is coverage for preexisting conditions. It isn't cheap, there are restrictions, but it is there.
http://www.chand.org/There are always people who fall through cracks. That seems to be in my karma or whatever, and I hate filling out forms, because invariably I run across something that cannot be adequately answered with a checkbox. What can be done is allow the marketplace to come up with programs which will cover the vast majority of people, and then address the cracks afterward. The more people the market can cover, the more money it will make.
Before, we were picking up the tab for people who just couldn't pay, one way or another (either in higher medical bills to keep hospitals solvent, charities, Medicaid, whatever).
There is a cost layer that goes into providing insurance for the same people--insurance companies want their bottom line to be in the black, and will charge extra to make sure it is so (besides the fact that profits keep stockholders happy). Paying the bill would be just paying the bill, without the added costs of processing insurance payments and billing the patient for the balance.
IOW, it would have been cheaper to just pick up the tab rather than heavily subsidize insurance plans, especially because the insurance has high deductibles. Obviously, if that was done for anyone, soon it would happen for everyone. Why pay for your own if the Government will pay anyway? So there must be limitations imposed.
But overall, I think the markets will find a way to at least provide limited (catastrophic) coverage to many people who are falling through cracks now, without subsidies, without the expense, and with better actuarial calculations which optimize a wider variety of policies for the individual.
