John Goodman has an excellent health-care piece at National Review Online. You don't have to subscribe to every element of his "plan" to appreciate many of his trenchant observations of coming Obamacare disasters. (Any "plan" that advertises it is crafted to meet perceived political constraints is bound to be less than perfect as a matter of economics.)
The slight weak point: he keeps community rating and guaranteed issue, but talks about how people need to sign up immediately or lose that benefit as they do in Medicare. I'm not sure just how he wants to do that or if that's realistic. But the big picture is right on: deregulated, individual, portable insurance.
Transferability between plans is a nice point: "if an expensive-to-treat patient moves from Plan A to Plan B, the former has to compensate the latter for any above-average expected costs — just the way Medicare compensates private plans."
But read it for the mess we're in now. Lots of looming problems have not made headlines. Yet.
The slight weak point: he keeps community rating and guaranteed issue, but talks about how people need to sign up immediately or lose that benefit as they do in Medicare. I'm not sure just how he wants to do that or if that's realistic. But the big picture is right on: deregulated, individual, portable insurance.
Transferability between plans is a nice point: "if an expensive-to-treat patient moves from Plan A to Plan B, the former has to compensate the latter for any above-average expected costs — just the way Medicare compensates private plans."
But read it for the mess we're in now. Lots of looming problems have not made headlines. Yet.
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