POSITION PAGE
Healthcare: We're Not There Yet
CHANGE
- Emphasize cost containment by moving away from fee-for-service while encouraging speedy diagnosis and treatment.
- Remove barriers to national insurance markets to maximize cost competition, coverage, and portability.
- Reduce government's footprint – currently 50 percent of all U.S. healthcare spending – while seeking economies of scale.
- Revise and update existing programs to meet these goals before implementing new programs.
- Revise the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as it implements too many unfunded mandates, too little innovation, and a new regulatory environment without removing existing barriers to cost competition and buyer participation.
GOALS
- Coverage: Confront regulatory challenges to reduce insurance costs and attract buyers.
- Cost: Move away from government paid fee-for-service and advocate competition.
- Portability: Free movement encourages labor mobility and lowers unemployment.
- Economies of scale: Use government's buying power in Medicare, Medicaid, and military healthcare programs to reduce costs.
BALANCE
- Encourage national insurance markets and eliminate state-by-state regulation.
- Maintain coverage for current participants; phase in sliding scale for benefit reductions as participant income increases.
- Merge Medicare and Medicaid to pay for the insurance of only those in need regardless of age.
- Eliminate the Medicare tax and fund the merged Medicare/Medicaid from general revenue.
- Eliminate all pre-tax deductions for health insurance and expenditures.
