Friday, March 30, 2012

Restoring the Ownership Society

The American experiment was about self-rule and self-ownership. The US Founders had a vision of an ownership society in which free people with property rights owned and built a better society.

In an ownership society, people provide for their health care by building equity in times of health for use in times of need.

Intellectuals despise owners as bourgeoisie and work feverishly to create a world free of ownership. One of the most successful devises in this political system X is a device called insurance.

Insurance replaces ownership with a complex nexus of contracts. Rather than owning and building equity to pay for care, insurance has people place their health care resources into a pool with the promise that they can pull resources from the pool when needs arise.

The predictable effect of placing all of our health care resources into a pool is that insurance concentrates wealth in the hands of the power players that control the pool and the people become subservient to the owners of the pool.

The insurance regime leads directly to a class society and growing gap between rich and poor.

Even worse, the society loses the edge it had as a ownership society.

I confess, the real goal of the Medical Savings and Loan is to restore the ownership society by replacing insurance with a structured savings program. The program takes the same money that goes into insurance and puts it into savings accounts. It will be common for policyholders to have more than $100,000 in savings.

What will people do with all of this money?

They will own things. If millions of people dumped insurance in favor of savings, we would have a broader distribution of ownership that would counter the concentration of ownership created by the insurance regime.

Sadly, in a day when people have been trained to expect socialism, I am finding it incredibly difficult to convey the message that an ownership society can fund more health care than a feudal society.

The goal of the medical savings and loan is to start a conversation. The entry Open Mic on my other blog shows the directions one can take this conversation.

Unfortunately, since I am talking about health care from a perspective that people are unfamiliar with, I fear that few understand my arguments. Hopefully, I will someday find someone who wants to talk free market health care reform.

I keep ending all of my posts with links to my contact form. If someone was interested in restoring the concept of ownership, they could contact me for a presentation on this concept that made America a great nation.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Replacing Insurance with Grants

Currently, the United States funds healthcare through employer based insurance.

The goal of the Medical Savings and Loan is to revive the concept of self-ownership. It replaces employer based insurance with a structured-savings program supplemented with grants.

The mantra of the program is: Those who can self fund their care should self fund their care. CMS.gov says the US is currently spending somewhere between 17.3% and 19% of the GDP on health care. The MS&L would say that people should self-fund their care up to 15% of their income.

By income, I mean income plus insurance. A person with a $40,000 job and $10,000 in insurance is really making $50,000 a year, n-est-ce-pas? A person making $50,000 a year earns $2,000,000 in a 40 year career; So, it is reasonable to expect this person to self fund care up to $300,000.00.

The MS&L replaces insurance with a structured savings program and says that the employees are now responsible for their care.

Of course, some people have extraordinary expenses.

For these people, the MS&L sets aside a sizeable amount of money into foundations for grants. The program determines the amount of money needed for grants by doing an actuarial analysis of medical expenses that exceed the 15% of a worker's income.

To recap: The MS&L has the same amout of money as insurnace. It puts most of the money that currently goes to insurance into a structured savings program owned by the employee. It places a big chunk of money into a grants program.

@ComfyPaws asked why would employers want to replace insurance with grants?

Well, the reason they would want to do this is the employees would perceive this new system as a raise (they are getting a lot more money). Above all, replacing insurance with grants relieves the employer from a contractual obligation for the health care for their employees.

The amount of money the employer pays is still the same. The big difference is that the MS&L removes a contractual obligation.
Since the employees are now spending their own dollars on health care, the actual cost of health care is likey to go down (people are more careful with their money than they are with other people's money). The employer would be getting more and better care for the same cost.

NOTE: Not all employers would want to replace insurance with the Medical Savings and Loan. The program IS NOT totalitarian. The goal is to create an option to insurance. The goal of this program is to break the claim that insurance is the only way to fund health care. Even if only a few doze employers opt for the Medical Savings a Loan instead of insurance, it would prove that that are viable alternatives to insurance.

For example, an employer with a high turnover might prefer the MS&L, while one with a model of long term employer loyalty would prefer insurance.

(If anyone would like to host a meeting on the Medical Savings and Loan as an alternative to Employer Based insurance, please contact me.)

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Primary and Secondary Spaces

I wrote a post on the use of grants in the Medical Savings and Loan.

The post is necessarily awkward.

In creating a design one needs to know the difference between primary space and spaces.

In the Medical Savings and Loan, your savings are the primary space. A person with a $50K job will make about $2,000,000.00 in a 40 year career. Let's assume that it is reasonable for people to pay the first 15% of their care. This is $300,000.

Of course some people have more medical expenses than their income can handle.

If someone has extraordinary expenses, he will need a supplement from somewhere. To handle these exceptions, the program creates a pool of grants.

The supplements are a secondary space.

I chose to use grants as the supplement rather than high deductible insurance because insurance is a legal product that all of the transactions to be handled as if they were legal claims.

The article on grants is really awkward because you have to understand how the savings accounts work, and you have to understand that insurance is a legal product.

Every transaction that takes place in insurance (and socialized care for that matter) must be handled as if it were a legal claim. This is why medical billing is so awkward. Doctors have to fill out extra paperwork because the patient is paying for the care with a legal claim.

My dog gets better health care than me for less money. The reason this happens is because the vet is providing a fee for service whereas the doctor is involved in complex chain of lawsuits that would give Rube Goldberg the willies.

Grants v. Insurance

The Medical Savings and Loan supplements savings with grants rather than high deductible insurance as is common with current HSA/HDHC policies.

The program is built on the premise that those who can self-fund their care should self-fund their care. The program uses a structured savings program to help people self-fund their care up to a reasonable percent of their life time income (by income I mean income plus what you currently pay for insurance.) If you make $40,000 a year and your employer pays $12,000 for your insurance, you are actually making $52,000 a year.

Let's say your life time income was $1.5 million. It would be reasonable to expect that you self-fund care up to $300,000 or so. If your income was $2 million, it might reasonable to expect you to fund up to $400k. A person who makes $50k a year will make $2,000,000.00 in their life.

Of course, sometimes people have medical expenses that exceed what they can reasonably self fund.

The MS&L supplements self-funding with grants.

Grants differ from insurance in the form of the contract.

Both insurance and grants start by calculating expected expenses. Lets say you were looking at a set of expenses that cost $1B (with a margin of error). With insurance, a third party will take on the expense as a liability. This third party will charge a premium that justifies taking on the risk associated with the liability (the margin of error). To insure a $1B expense, the third party might charge $1.1B or more.

With insurance every transaction is legal claim against this third party. When you visit a doctor, you and your doctor file a legal claim against the insurance company. This claim must be prepared in accordance with the standards of the courts that have jurisdiction over the legal claim. Medical billing is so expensive because every bill must be prepared to current legal standards.

With the grant process, people look at the same $1B cost. Rather than involving courts and a third party speculator, people simply hold aside the $1B in a foundation. The foundation has a legal obligation to dispense the funds to the participants in a plan.

Both the foundation and insurance distribute roughly the same amount of cash.

So, the Medical Savings and Loan holds up the ideal that those who can self-fund their care should self-fund their care. Participants in the plan have a savings accounts and access to loans. To help make health care decisions, participants in the plan have access to a Health Care Advocate.

Most people can self fund their care. If you have unusually high health expenses (or unusually low income) your experience will be as follows: You would borrow money for immediate expenses. The doctor would calculate what you need for future care. Your advocate would then apply for grants from the well-funded grant agencies.

The grant agencies would give you money that goes into your savings account. You and your advocate would then negotiate with your provider for service with these funds. If this money plus your personal funds continue to be insufficient, or you have new major expenses, the advocate will apply for more grants.

NOTE: Every payment in the Medical Savings and Loan is a direct cash transaction between the patient and doctor. There is no complex legal claim that requires state regulation.

This grant process disperses the same amount of money as insurance, but it removes the complex claims process.

So the program starts with each person having a large amount of money for their personal health care. By large, I mean your average American will have several hundred thousand dollars.

Most people can pay for their care from these large savings accounts.
When someone has insufficient funds, their health care advocate will apply for grants from well funded grant agencies. They will get a cash grant that they then can spend.

Most people can self fund their health care. For most people their medical experience will be one in which they save money during their productive years for use in times of need.

For those with extraordinary health expenses, they would proceed as if they were self-funding care. On occasion, they would receive a supplemental grant.

Since all the transactions are direct cash for service transactions, the program will be more efficient than either insurance or socialized medicine.

Since people do better with their money than with other people's money, people are apt to receive more and better care with their health care resources than in third party payment systems.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Stand Up For Freedom Rally

I took pictures at the poorly attended Stand Up for Freedom Rally in Salt Lake. This event marked the second anniversary of PPACA. In a state where people wear their religion on their sleaves, one would expect thousands at the rally.

Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally
Speaking at the Event
Crowd at the Rally

I admit, I had really hoped that the rally would provide an opportunity to network and maybe find someone interested in developing the concept of "self-funded" health care as an alternative to insurance. I believe that, simply developing an accepted alternative to insurance, could help break the arguments for health exchanges.

I lament that in the last three years, I've yet to find a single Utahan who is willing to talk about this issue. The LDS Church invests heavily in the theme that they are persescuted for their religious beliefs, but Mormons fail to stand up for others when the Federal Government is imposing mandates that violate basic teachings of other religious groups.

It's been two years since the passing of PPACA. I've yet to find a single Utahan interested in talking about free market alternatives to insurance. This is an issue that is supposed to resonate in the "most conservative" state. The only thing I've been able to conclude from my experience is that Conservatism is too partisan and too closed minded to stand up the the challenge. Closed minded conservatives are as much as danger to this nation as the conniving progressive.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Coercion in the MS&L

There are many interesting topics related to the Medical Savings and Loan. The MS&L replaces insurance with a combination of structured savings accounts, loans and grants (the grants are for people who cannot self-fund care).

The central feature of the plan is the structured savings account. The goal is to have people build adequate savings to pay for their expected health care needs. The system has a position called a Health Care Advocate who will educate clients on expected future expenses and will set up the structured savings program. 

If the program works, the policyholders will have hundreds of thousands of dollars set aside for health care. So, there must be ways to  encourage people to save and to prevent them from wasting money on a new car or vacation. Many of these techniques border on coercion.

CraigJCasey brought up the question of coercion with the comment: "as long as 'structured' does not mean forced / coerced."

There is an element of coercion in self-funded health care. Essentially, if a person is expected to self-fund their care, and they never save; then they don't get care. This is a very clear threat: "If you do not save for your health care; you don't deserve care."

The MS&L supplements savings with loans and grants. The loan reserves will not give the loans to people who are not in a structrured savings program. The foundations giving grants will favor people who are  part of a structured savings program.

This system is very coercive.

The program will have loans and grants available, but you don't get them if you don't save. That is a direct threat. The advocates will tell you that you will have hundreds of thousands of dollars in health expenses and if you don't save, then you don't deserve the care. They are playing on your fears.

This coercion is not contrived. The advocates will look at the cost of medical care and tell its policyholders that you must be setting aside a certain amount to assure that you can cover your expenses when your time comes.

The program does use coercion. The difference between the Medical Savings and Loan and insurance, PPACA, socialism, etc., is that it does not use coercion to take money from one person and give it to another. It is using coercion to encourage people to self-fund care and prevent the artificial transfer of wealth to fund health care.


The program works by telling people how much money they should set aside for care. It creates a structured savings plan to help people set aside this amount of money.

The program supplements the savings accounts with loans and grants. The kicker is that you won't get the loans or grants if you are not engaged in structured savings.

Charitable organization might use the MS&L concept to force people into better financial habits. For example, let's say a person shows up at an emergency room expecting care. The emergency room would give that person a loan for their care ... then use the loan to coerce the patient into a structured savings program. The care provider is using the loan to force the person into savings.

This "coercion" reduces the amount of money the public sector needs to commit to providing health care.

There are other elements of "coercion" in the program. Employers have a strong desire for employees to take care of their health. Employers will deposit the money currently paid for insurance into an account that has a contractual clause that states the money must be used for health care. This contract is coercive. You can't use your health savings to pay for other goods.

Nature is coercive. Nature forces us to do things that we do not want to do. I would prefer to be awake at all times, buf nature forces me to go to bed every night. I would prefer to fly than to walk, but nature uses gravity to hold me to the ground. By our nature we are forced (coercion) to endure things we would prefer to avoid.

The real question is not whether or not coercion exists but whether or not the coercion is natural or contrived. The coercion we need to avoid is the coercion in which an authority takes resources from party A and gives it to party B. The MS&L reduces coerced transfers of wealth.

The MS&L presents clients with a structured savings program. It tells people that if they do not participate in the structured savings, they do not deserve access to grants and loans. That is coercion ... but a better coercion than one in which the government takes the people's money and reduces them to dependency.

Is the MS&L a Wingnut Proposal?

Insurance works as follows: People place their healthcare resources into a pool.

This leads immediately to political battles over who controls the pool.

Conversely, if you broke down insurance pools into individual accounts and let people keep their own health care dollars, you would remove the fuel for the political battles.

I worked analyzing insurance claims. The data indicated that the majority of people would be better off if they self funded their care. To do this, people need just a little bit of guidance, so I created the Health Care Advocate to replace the Insurance Agent.

A structured savings program that identified the people who can self-fund their care also identifies those people who cannot. So, I would create a system of foundations that help provide supplements.

This reduces the public policy debate to only the amount of care that exceeds people's ability to pay.

Anyway,  for promoting self-funded health care, I was just labeled a "right-wing wingnut" by some left wing loon.

I take all input seriously and wonder if this really is just some wingnut proposal.

I think the opposite is true. Creating a system of self-funded health care would drain the centralized insurance pools that the political class fights over while providing individual care.

Because it removes the source of funding for political battles, I find that the political class on both the left and right does not want to bury this particular debate.

Both conservative and progressive politicians are opposed to self-funded care. Because of this, I am having a bear of a time getting this discussion off the ground.

 The only way to get the discussion off the ground is to find independent groups who are outside the political game but who want to preserve the American experiment in self-rule.

I want to give my presentation on self-funded health care. Conservative politicians here in Utah slam the door in my face the second they realize I am talking about draining the insurance pools that feed their political machine.

I am hoping to find groups in Arizona, Colorado or Southern California interested in discussing alternative forms of funding health care.

Here is my contact form. What I am hoping for is someone saying: I would love to host a discussion on free market health care reform in such and such place. If I could get a couple meetings set up, then traveling would be worthwhile.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Stumping for Ron Paul

Although Ron Paul is closer to my views on health care than other candidates, I have not been stumping for the good doctor.

His health care policies are slightly better than other candidates, but they fall short. Dr. Paul seeks to deregulate insurance when we really need an alternative to insurance.

Doctor Paul fails to understand that insurance was created by progressives for the express purpose of regulating health care.

Medicine involves irregular expenditures. Progressives created insurance to regulate these expenses. With insurance, you pay regular premiums into a pool, in exchange you are legally entitled to get health care in times of need.

Insurance involves the state from the beginning. Every transaction in insurance is a legal claim overseen by the local courts. Ron Paul wants people to buy insurance across state lines. Such policies confuse jurisdiction. If I lived in Colorado and bought Arizona insurance, I am essentially trying to buy the rulings of a different legal jurisdiction. Buying insurance across state lines can't work becaause every transaction is a legal claim.

The only way to restore health freedom is to create a self-funded alternative to group insurance.

This is something that the people could do without a government program. All it takes is a group of people who are interested in restoring freedom gathered in a room. Sadly, Ron Paul fails to understand the nature of insurance. Seeking to deregulate a regulator leads to chaos.

Other policies fall short as well: I absolutely adore Ron Paul's stance against the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is not a government agency. It is a private bank that serves the Federal Government.

Although I love Paul's campaign to end the Fed, it doesn't go far enough in addressing the artificial markets created by our progressive overlords. For example, the central exchanges of Wall Street (NYSE & NASDAQ) were created by progressives to regulate the ownership of production. Deep Capture argues about how these agencies are controlled by groups that do not respect the property rights of others.

I did not support Paul's run for president because I worry that he would pass ineffective deregulations that led to chaos allowing for an even worse government to replace him.

That said, Ron Paul's run for office is the best thing the Republicans have going at the moment.

2012 Delegate Tracker
as of 3/14/2012
CandidateWSJCNN
Romney495489
Santorum252234
Gingrich131139
Paul4866
Huntsman20
After the Mississippi and Alabama primaries, Newt Gingrich made the salient point that if Mitt Romney fails to get the magic 1144 delegates, the Republican party will be forced into internal discussions and negotiations.

Although Ron Paul's ideas fall short of perfection, they are the best that the Republicans have going.

Neither Newt nor Santorum are on track to getting the nomination. So the best possible thing that can happend in the Republican primary is for Ron Paul to get more delegates so that Libertarian ideas are firmly on the table during the negotiations.

Of course, the restoration of health freedom will not come from the government, it can only happen if the people demand free market alternatives to employer based insurance.

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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

There Still Is Hope

Progressives seek to impose socialism via Health Exchanges. (ObamaCare and RomneyCare are both Health Exchanges).

The Health Exchanges are premised on the false assumption that group pools (insurance) are the only possible way to fund health care.

The best way to beat this game is to create a mathematically viable alternative to insurance.

I've developed a mathematically viable alternative to Insurance called "The Medical Savings and Loan." The program uses a combination of savings accounts and loans to help people self fund care. With this program, I can argue that people would receive better care if we restored the concept of self funded health care.

This presentation attacks ObamaCare and RomneyCare at the false assumption (it's weekest point).

Sadly, during the Tea Party, people fell for the idea that simply supporting Republicans or people calling themselves "conservative" would defeat ObamaCare. I was unable to build interest in the direct root of attacking the false asumptions of the exchanges.

In the 2012 election, we find the Republican front runner (Mitt Romney) is a primary architect of health exchanges and that supposedly "conservative" states like Utah adopted the Exchanges without any debate or consideration of alternatives.

It is now clear that progressives in both the Republican and Democratic party seek to socialize medicine via health exchanges.

It is foolish to look to politicians for freedom. It is up to the American people to restore freedom.

It is still possible to beat the exchanges. All it takes is a group of people willing to invest time to investigate alternatives to insurance.

I would love to hit the road this summer to host meetings on alternatives to insurance.  Last year I spent all of my money traveling from state to state trying to find people willing to discuss alternatives to insurance.

I will only repeat the effort if I can find people willng to host a local meeting on Health Freedom.

I live in Utah. I have one good lead in San Diego.  That is a 1500 mile trip. I get 30  MPG. I would need 50 gallons of gas and an oil change. The trip would cost me $250 plus any hotels and food along the way. My guess is the trip would cost $500 to $1000.

If I could find places to hold meetings in Arizona or Los Vegas as well, then the trip might be worth the effort.

The problem is, I need someone else to host the meetings. I would be delighted to get a half dozen people in a room who are interested in health care reform. Here is my contact page.

Here is a page full of ads that support this effort.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Officially Recognized Something

SouthernCharm asked me about The Medical Savings and Loan: "Do you have an official role in that, or are you a citizen just trying to be involved?"

I own the web sites promoting these ideas. But am the only person officially involved in the effort. I wish I could get others involved.

I worked for years writing computer programs to analyze insurance claims and calculate premiums. Every piece of data I could find said that health insurance dramatically under-serves middle and working class Americans. People would get better care if they self-funded their care; So, I left the industry with hopes of developing an alternative to insurance.

The alternative is the Medical Savings and Loan. This program uses a combination of savings accounts supplemented by loans to help people self fund care. It uses a system of grants to supplement care for people who cannot self-fund their care. The program does not involve any direct contracts for providing care. The program is administered by a new position called a Health Care Advocate. My program uses a different mathematical model than pooled insurance.

I've been looking for people interested in free market health care reform. The group would establish an organization dedicated to researching and promoting alternatives to pooled insurance.

I have one big disadvantage. I live in Utah, but am not LDS. This means that I am a pariah. Utah was established as a theocratic commune. The church that controls the state is set on using group funded health care to control the population and is fully dedicated to socializing medicine through "Health Exchanges"

All of the leading LDS politician all for socializing medicine via state run exchanges. Harry Reid (D-Nev), Mitt Romney (R-Mass), Gov Leavitt (R), Gov Huntsman (R), and Gov Herbert (R) have all played instrumental roles in using health exchanges to socialize health care.

I have been unable to find any local people willing to stand against the imposition of health exchanges.

So, I have to travel ... which is expense and difficult. I have little in the way of resources. I have a page full of ads. That's not going to put gas in a tank. I am ready to make a trip to Arizona and SoCal. I want to make sure I have at least two confirmed locations and dates before I hit the road.

Anyway, I guess the answer to SouthernCharm's question: I am really just a shrill voice whose been trying for decades to tell people that: "If you give up some of your freedom for security, you will soon end up with neither."

I will be stuck in this status until I find at least one person who agrees with the idea that we should explore the concept of self-funded health care.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

High Deductible Insurance Does Not Restore Pricing Mechanism

High Deductible Insurance does not restore the pricing mechanism, nor does it restore the doctor/patient relation.

Even though a person has high deductible insurance and is pays some bills directly out of pocket, all of the payments must conform to the standards of the insurance company to qualify for the deductible. This means the insurance company is still the controlling factor in the negotiation of price and services.

High deductible insurance does nothing to control prices because the price breakdown is most pronounced in the high price services that are above the deductible.

The only way to restore the doctor/patient relation and pricing mechanism is to create a system where the consumer controls the negotiation of services from the first dollar.

At current rates, the average American pays a half million or so in insurance premiums and deductibles.

If you put the bulk of that money in a savings account, you would find that Americans can pay some hefty medical bills. A person with $400,000 can pay that hefty $30,000 doctor bill that everyone fears. We should not consider supplementing health care until a person has problems that clearly go beyond the norm.

The Medical Savings and Loan starts with the first dollar and has people self-funding their care until their medical history demonstrates that they have problems that fall outside their ability to pay. (There is a health care advocate who helps people with planning)

We can restore the pricing mechanism in health care and we can restore the doctor/patient relation. The secret is simply to see the individual as a whole being. Contrivances like Health Exchanges and High Deductible Insurance, which try to abstract off risk, fail to see people as whole beings.

Monday, March 5, 2012

The MS&L Conversation

A note to readers. My current goal is to start a conversation about self-funded care.

I've developed the Medical Savings and Loan way beyond the articles I've posted online. I've chosen to keep the online presentation simple because I want to focus on the question of self-financed v. group financed care.

My objective is to someday host a meetting with dozen or so people to discuss building a health care financing system from the ground up around the concept of property rights and savings.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Insurance and Debt

America is being crushed under loads of debt.

Insurance is part of this debt problem.

In the classical Free Market, people would fund health care by building equity in times of health and using that equity in times of illness. People would supplement the care of others through charity. Charities are funded by building equity then distributing equity to people in times of need.

The idea behind insurance is that a society can fund health care through cash flow. With employer based insurance, a company will put all of the health care resources of the workers into a common pool that they replenish on a quarter by quarter basis..

This idea is popular with the first generation that buys insurance because they get to spend the money that they had been saving for health care.

Sadly, with insurance, people trade their personal risk with a systemic risk.

The cash flow of a company is not constant. Paying for health care expenses from cash flow creates a systemic risk for a company. Health care is a now a large fixed expense that companies must pay each quarter.

A dip in the market means that a company's financing goes from black to red with the fluctuations in cash flow.  When the company goes bankrupt, the workers find that they no longer have the health security that they thought their insurance policy bought.

The goal of the Medical Savings and Loan is to restore the concept of equity financed health care. It takes the premium that goes to insurance and splits it into savings accounts, loan reserves and grant foundations.

NOTE: Because the MS&L seeks to fully restore the paradigm of equity financed care, it builds substantially higher savings than an HSA/HDHC program. My models indicate that most Americans would have hundreds of thousands of dollars for health care at retirement if they followed the MS&L program. An HSA/HDHC policy only has tens of thousands in savings. In a typical HSA/HDHC program, people will only have about tenth of health care financed through equity with bulk of care still funded through cash flow.

Developing the MS&L would help restore the concept of equity financing and would provide a bright future for America's children. If anyone is interested in hosting a presentation on this concept, please contact me.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Regulating the Regulator

Health care expenses are irregular.

Insurance was created as a device to regulate these expenses. With insurance, people pay a regular premium into a group pool, which has a contractual obligation to pay for care.

To receive care, people file a legal claim against the pool. These claims are overseen by the local courts. In the United States the claims fall under state jurisdiction.

You can't buy insurance across state lines because insurance is a legal product and doing so confuses jurisdiction.

Insurance is essentially a complex mesh of legal products designed to regulate health care expenses.

The left's call for more regulation of insurance and the right's call for deregulation are both paradoxical because insurance is a regulator.

The whole field of insurance regulation is a dysfunctional mishmash of regulators regulating regulators with law suits pile upon lawsuits with the end result of putting health out the means of working class Americans.

Because insurance is a regulator, calls to deregulate the regulator will never succeed.

The best path for free market health care reform is to revive the traditional concept of self financed health care.

The Medical Savings and Loan is a structured savings program supplemented with loans and grants. In this program, people build equity and use that equity to pay for care (as they did in the days prior to insurance). The program creates a new position called a Health Care Advocate who helps people design their savings plan, maintain records and negotiate prices with local providers.

Transactions in self-funded care are cash payments directly from the patient to doctor.

This removes the court from the doctor's office allowing the doctors concentrate on medicine. The fact that the money is now flowing directly from the patient to doctor restores the pricing mechanism and creates a system of patient centered care.

If you would like to host a meeting on the Medical Savings and Loan, I live in Utah and am able to travel to Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, and even to the Soviet Socialist Republic of California.

The program involves a presentation about the Medical Savings and Loan followed by a discussion of group-funded v. self-funded care. I am willing to give the program for free. To pay for my traveling expenses, I've developed a fitness related fundraiser that I would host in conjunction with the presentation.

If you would like to host a program on free market health care reform, Please contact me.

Friday, March 2, 2012

A Chance to Make a Positive Impact

Like many Americans, I am deeply troubled with the direction of the health care debate.

This debate holds the false premise that health care must be funded by a third party. Progressives, on both the left and right, present their false dichotomy with the question: "Who should own your health care? Big Government or Big Business."

This is a false dichotomy. You own your body. You should own the health care resources associated with your body. There should not be a controlling third party between the doctor and patient.

I believe that the best path to restoring health freedom is to reject the false dichotomy and to start a new dialogue around the concept of self-funded health care.

I used to work writing programs for analyzing insurance claims and calculating premiums. All of the data I encountered suggested that the current insurance regime hurts the working poor and small business.

So, my goal for the last three years has been to find a group wanting to engage in a dialog about health freedom.

I live in Utah which was founded as a theocratic commune. The Conservatives in Utah want a communal body to own the health care of the collective. They just want to be the ones controlling the collective. They attack PPACA (ObamaCare) for being Federally controlled while imposing the same law on the people.

Governor Herbert, Governor Huntsman, Governor Leavitt and the LDS Church have all come out in favor of government controlled health exchanges; so long as they are the ones that control the exchanges. The two other most prominent Mormons (Harry Reid of Nevada, and Mitt Romney) also favor health care controlled through centralized government exchanges.

The progressives in Utah seek government controlled health care at the Federal Level.

With both sides of the debate favoring controlling healthcare through centralized government exchanges, people seeking an alternative are locked out of the debate.

End of Story.

I have found no groups in Utah interested in restoring our Constitutional Liberties.

So, I must travel. Last year, I spent my last dime traveling to Phoenix, Reno, Las Vegas and Denver looking for free market groups. Trying to make contacts while living in a hotel room is both hard and expensive.

I am ready and willing to hit the road again, but I need to organize meetings online before I leave.

I have one offer to visit San Diego. If I can arrange additional meetings in Arizona, I would hit the road.

My program includes an informative discussion about self-funded health care and a wellness related fund raiser.

My hope is to find a group that can organize a meeting with 10-50 attendees and that is willing to host the fundraiser (which is a relay walk). I am willing to give the group the funds I raise beyond my hotel room, a meal and gas.

There is a large number of groups pushing Health Savings Accounts as part of health care reform. None of the groups have gone as far as my program in claiming that health care should start with a fully structured savings program for self-funded care.

I believe that a group engaged in a conversation about self-funded health care could help turn the tide against government controlled care.

If I am correct, then this program is worth exploring. Unfortunately to get the ball rolling, I need someone to organize the initial meeting for me.

My program has two components: A meeting that takes about four hours in a room and a fitness fundraiser that could take place in a park. The program might make money for the group that hosts it.

I need someone who could get a room and guarantee at least twenty people on a set date and could reserve a place in a park for the fitness fundraiser. I will give the group a great deal of free advertising in return.

Here is my contact page. For the last three years, I've been trying to find a group to host this meeting. I believe that a meeting that rejects the false dichtomy of the Progressives and seeks to restore the concept of self-funded health care could make a difference.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

ObamaCare is a Health Exchange


Conservative media seems to be hiding the fact that PPACA (ObamaCare) is a health exchange. The exchanges in ObamaCare are implemented at the state level and regulated at both the state and federal level.

The fact that Mitt Romney, a supporter of the health exchange concept, is the leading contender for the Republican nomination leads me to fear that the GOP is engaged in a cynical plan to discredit ObamaCare simply to take control of the exchanges.


This is what happened here in Utah. The Republican leadership attacked ObamaCare then implemented the health exchanges (ObamaCare) without any debate. It was the most cynical thing I had ever seen.

I believe that the right direction for health care reform is to restore the concept of "self-funded health care."

I have a wonderful presentation that I've titled "The Medical Savings and Loan." In this program I create a mathematically viable alternative to group insurance. I then argue that our health care woes are the result of group funding of individual consumption. I show that returning to self-funded care restores the pricing mechanism in health care, solves the problem of portability and provides a basis for handing bigger issues like pre-existing conditions.

For the last three years, I've been trying to find a venue to give the presentation.

I've exhausted myself chasing down leads in Reno, Phoenix, Denver and Las Vegas.

I would be happy to travel to any group within a reasonable distance of Utah to give the presentation.

I have a fundraising program to go along with the presentation and will provide a great deal of free publicity to any group willing to put on the presentation.

Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to travel to a city and organize a meeting. Here is my contact page.