Ten Principles of Health Care Reform

From FEE.org:

1. Government should not be determining what is or must be insured. That should be up to the consumers to decide.
2. Government should not interfere in contractual relationships between providers and purchasers of insurance, whether individuals or businesses.
3. Prices for medical services need to be completely decontrolled, and the convoluted market-rigging by a conspiracy of providers, insurers, and government welfare bureaucracies must be ended.
4. Government should not mandate coverage by employers or privilege employer-provided coverage over individually purchased coverage. Third-party payment should be an option.
5. Government should not mandate that insurers accept all comers at the same price; that system makes a mockery of the whole idea of insurance itself.
6. Discrimination for “pre-existing conditions” should not be a criminal act but rather a rational consideration for determining premiums.
7. Government should not restrict who gets to try their hand at providing insurance; entry and exit need to be competitive too.
8. Government should never force anyone to pay for a service that he or she does not want. You say coverage is a human right? It’s a human right for a person to refuse coverage.
9. If you want to get serious about fixing the system, the byzantine pharmaceutical system has to go. Again, let the consumers decide, and, while we are at it, there should be complete free trade in medicine.
10. The 100-year old medical credential monopoly that has so severely restricted entry into the profession should be dismantled. The market is fully capable of assuring quality, and remember too that there is not one definition of quality.

Source: “Real Health Insurance Is a Crime.” by Warren Gibson from Essential Guide to Healthcare (pdf).

Good ideas. Make sense.