Truthfully, I stopped following Utah politics. While watching national news, I discovered that Utah's Health Coop was one of the dozen of health coops which have failed. Apparently, the coop officially failed on October 27th and the Utah insurance industry is ripping at the dead carcass of this beast as I write.
I was really upset when the Utah political machine shoved the Utah health coop down our throat with very little debate. Had Utahans engaged in a conversation about insurance, I am sure the state could have pieced together a much better deal.
I read several of the reports on the failure of the coop and wondered if the failure of this entity might lead to an open discussion about alternative approaches to health care reform.
I feel like a broken record here. For the last seven years, I've contended that if a group of people got together to discuss the mathematics of free market health care reform, that group could create an alternative to group health insurance that would get our nation out of the mess created by the insurance companies.
The discussion involves mathematics (Junior High level mathematics) but math is still math and people are scared of math.
As you see, a discussion about health care simply must start by creating a mathematical model that describes individual income and individual health care expenses.
There is no way to discuss health care reform that does not involve discussing the mathematics of health care.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to talk about mathematics of health care online because people browsing the internet simply lack the attention span to discuss mathematics.
Let's take a very simple equation A = B, where A is a complex express and B is a complex expression.
To discuss "A = B," I might start by creating a post about "A."
The post is likely to lead into a huge flame war about "A."
After the flame war settles a bit, I will try to talk about "B" and another flame war will ensue with trolls accusing me of hypocrisy because B is different from A.
The way people behave on the Internet, I will never get to the sentence that "A = B."
The battle is lost from the get go.
One does not find a large number of web sites discussing mathematics
on the internet, because people on the Internet lack the attention span
to discuss complex ideas in depth.
The "Medical Savings and Loan" is a conversation about health care that starts by creating a mathematical model of income and health care expenses. The model has several components: Every member of the plan has a health savings account. Members buy into a loan reserve. The system includes a generously funded grant program. The plan is administered by independent agents call Health Care Advocates.
These components work together to create a mathematical model of health care.
I put together a presentation in which I talk about each of the components of this plan. I talk for almost 15 minutes about each component. This is about an hour.
After creating this model, I create a mathematical model of group health insurance. (Employer health insurance and socialism are essentially the same thing. Socialism is group insurance at the state level. Employer based care is socialism at a corporate level). From a mathematically point of view there is little difference between group insurance and socialism. The only real difference is political.
An hour and twenty minutes into my presentation, I get to the point where I can compare the Medical Savings and Loan to Group Care.
At this point in the presentation, I start to compare the models of group care to individual care. I contend that if people started having this conversation, they would not only opt for individual health care, they would use the mathematics I discussed to create viable alternatives to Obamacare.
I live in Utah. Utah is a closed and intolerant society.
Anyway, I see that exchanges have failed in Arizona and Nevada. It is possible that people in neighboring states might be interested in discussing health care reform.
I am still convinced that if people studied the mathematics of funding health care and discussed free market health care reform, that the group could have a positive impact.
Of course, a person who is locked out of society can't do much ... which is why I had stopped blogging.
