It is true that the media and academic community lean left.
There is not a "news blockade" against the free market health care reform. The problem is that there is not an organization at the ready when free market health care reform breaks through the national media.
For example, my last post shows a great speech by Dr. Benjamin Carson in which he mentions Medical Savings Accounts.
Unfortunately, there is not an adequate organization to follow through on this debate and the momentum is lost.
I've been following the health care debate since the 1980s.
There have been hundreds of these moments when free market health care reform catches the public attention. Unfortunately, the freedom movement fails to capitalize on these moments because there is not a group at the ready to do the follow through.
Because the insurance lobby is large and powerful, what usually happens after these breakthrough moments is the insurance lobby will muscle itself into the spotlight and claim that insurance is the free market solution. The insurance lobby might use the spotlight to argue for tort reform or for buying insurance across state lines, but they fall short of discuss substantive free market health care reform.
The insurance lobby also puts forward the idea that tacking a tax free health savings account onto a high deductible insurance policy would somehow make things better. Give me an hour, and I will tear this idea to shreds.
See, the combination of savings and high deductible insurance is worst possible implementation of health savings.
What happens is that companies will try to cut cost by giving high deductible insurance to its low wage workers. This causes the low wage workers to skip preventative care and increases costs.
The program fails to restore the pricing mechanism in health. The problem in health care is not the basic care that one can buy at any clinic. The cost driver in health care is the expense stuff that happens after exhausting the deductible.
Care providers are attentive to who is paying the bill. So, providers will try to shift costs from those below the deductible to those who are above the deductible.
So, while insurance companies like the idea of tacking a health savings account onto high deductible insurance, it is not the best implementation of health savings for the individual.
There are enough horror stories of people on HSA+HDHC that the left is able to shout down the freedom movement when it is drawn into defending this idea.
There are hundreds of these break through moments when people begin to discuss free market health care reform. To take advantage of the moments, there needs to be a group at the ready to take advantage of the moments.
I've followed the health care issue for decades. I have some great ideas to contribute to such a movement. Above all, I am willing to do the work to help an organization get on the right track.
I confess, I can be obstinate. But, you know, that is a virtue when one must be at the ready to stand against forces on both the left and the right. I started to put together an organization called "The Health Care Advocates Association."
The goal of this organization is to create a mechanism for funding health care built from the ground up around Medical Savings Accounts. I gave my model the working title "The Medical Savings and Loan."
The point of the name is to say that the freedom movement needs an alternative to the HSA+HDHC model.
What needs to happen is for a small group of people to meet and spend a few days talking about free market health care reform, and I've been stuck for five years trying to find people with sufficient interest in free market reform to pursue the concept.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Dr. Carson to Obama
Dr. Carson gave a thought provoking speech on health care at a prayer breakfast. During this speech he spoke about spirituality, the current state of discourse. In the speech he mentioned Medical Savings Account.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Medical Savings Accounts would Reduce Poverty
Poverty is a state of being in which you own nothing.
Socialism tries to end poverty by ending ownership. The effect of socialism is that socialists create a dystopia with people reduced to abject poverty while an empowered elite controlling all aspects of life.
The way you end poverty is to structure society that people own things.
Using medical savings accounts to fund health care instead of insurance would dramatically reduce poverty because people would own the resources in their medical savings accounts.
If we gave every American a Medical Savings Account at birth and put their health care dollars in the accounts there would be fewer poor people.
Good portions of the money would be invested in housing. This would increase the percentage of Americans who own their house outright and reduce the systemic risk created by mortgages.
I used the term Medical Savings and Loan to differentiate my discussion from the HSA/HDHP offered by some firms. A high deductible policy with an HSA is still an insurance product.
I advocate a system of medical savings accounts supplemented by loans and grants. This system would put substantially more money in the accounts of the worker.
In the status quo, employers take about a half million dollars from each worker to provide care.
If your insurance policy costs $10,000 per year, you will end up paying over $400,000 in insurance premiums. You also have co-pays and deductibles.
If you add in the Medicare Tax; you will find that the ruling elite are taking over a half million dollars from each worker to provide for their care.
My analysis shows that if we replaced insurance with the Medical Savings and Loan, that your average working class family would have accounts with $100,000 to $200,000 by the time they retire.
Most of this money would be in housing. More working class Americans would own their house reducing the systemic risk of mortgage default.
Of course, people would end up selling their house to pay for care when they retire. But it is better to have a house to sell than to have a huge mortgage against a house at retirement ... as is common these days.
The growing poverty in America is frightening. This growing poverty is the result of the way we structured health care. Americans used to save for their care and were rich as a result.
Unfortunately, we listened to the likes of Warren Buffett and put our health savings into insurance pools.
By doing such, we undermined the once mighty American Middle class and reduced millions of Americans into poverty.
If we seek a restoration of the American experiment in self rule, we need to create an alternative to insurance. (an HSA plus high deductible insurance policy is still insurance).
Anyway, I conclude by repeating:
Poverty is a state of owning nothing and being helpless. The way to reduce poverty is to structure society around ownership.
Creating an alternative to insurance would help restore an ownership society. It would reduce poverty by increasing the amount of stuff owned by the working class and lower middle class.
If there is anyone on this planet brave enough to discuss free market health care, please contact me. I live in Utah. I am willing to travel. BTW, Utah is pretty. Here is my tumblr gallery of Utah.
Socialism tries to end poverty by ending ownership. The effect of socialism is that socialists create a dystopia with people reduced to abject poverty while an empowered elite controlling all aspects of life.
The way you end poverty is to structure society that people own things.
Using medical savings accounts to fund health care instead of insurance would dramatically reduce poverty because people would own the resources in their medical savings accounts.
If we gave every American a Medical Savings Account at birth and put their health care dollars in the accounts there would be fewer poor people.
Good portions of the money would be invested in housing. This would increase the percentage of Americans who own their house outright and reduce the systemic risk created by mortgages.
I used the term Medical Savings and Loan to differentiate my discussion from the HSA/HDHP offered by some firms. A high deductible policy with an HSA is still an insurance product.
I advocate a system of medical savings accounts supplemented by loans and grants. This system would put substantially more money in the accounts of the worker.
In the status quo, employers take about a half million dollars from each worker to provide care.
If your insurance policy costs $10,000 per year, you will end up paying over $400,000 in insurance premiums. You also have co-pays and deductibles.
If you add in the Medicare Tax; you will find that the ruling elite are taking over a half million dollars from each worker to provide for their care.
My analysis shows that if we replaced insurance with the Medical Savings and Loan, that your average working class family would have accounts with $100,000 to $200,000 by the time they retire.
Most of this money would be in housing. More working class Americans would own their house reducing the systemic risk of mortgage default.
Of course, people would end up selling their house to pay for care when they retire. But it is better to have a house to sell than to have a huge mortgage against a house at retirement ... as is common these days.
The growing poverty in America is frightening. This growing poverty is the result of the way we structured health care. Americans used to save for their care and were rich as a result.
Unfortunately, we listened to the likes of Warren Buffett and put our health savings into insurance pools.
By doing such, we undermined the once mighty American Middle class and reduced millions of Americans into poverty.
If we seek a restoration of the American experiment in self rule, we need to create an alternative to insurance. (an HSA plus high deductible insurance policy is still insurance).
Anyway, I conclude by repeating:
Poverty is a state of owning nothing and being helpless. The way to reduce poverty is to structure society around ownership.
Creating an alternative to insurance would help restore an ownership society. It would reduce poverty by increasing the amount of stuff owned by the working class and lower middle class.
If there is anyone on this planet brave enough to discuss free market health care, please contact me. I live in Utah. I am willing to travel. BTW, Utah is pretty. Here is my tumblr gallery of Utah.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Regulating Guns Through Insurance
As mentioned on my other blog, gun control advocates seek to regulate guns through insurance.
The insurance companies would charge gun owners a premium year each for the privilege of gun ownership. This premium would make a huge pool to compensate anyone who experiences gun violence.
Juries are sympathetic to victims of crimes. Juries are likely to award huge settlements whenever a case strikes them thusly; so the premiums for gun insurance will be massive.
Because juries would award enormous settlements from the insurance pool, the premiums from the pool would be huge. The huge premiums mean that the gun control advocates could control guns by fiat through administrative rules of the insurance company.
For example, awards are likely to be higher if the crime involved a scary looking gun with a large magazine. This would allow regulators in the insurance industry to charge higher premiums for AR-type guns than for pistols.
It is likely that the gun insurance would be sold by groups like the NRA. The money would be held by insurance companies that make huge contributions to politicos on the left and right. So, once the insurance gets started, politicians will give the insurance bi-partisan support.
Imagined for a moment that the NRA made millions by selling insurance. Once that happens, then preserving the income stream of insurance would become a higher priority of the group than defending the second amendment.
The economic effect of gun insurance is that the insurance would transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from middle class gun owners to the ruling elite in the centralized banks.
Now, I admit. I am not all that interested in guns.
The thing is that insurance has had the same perverse effect in health care.
Health Insurance was designed by progressives as a tool for regulating health care.
Progressives developed health insurance as a tool to regulate health care through privately owned firms.
Although health insurance involves private corporations, health insurance has the same perverse effects as direct government control of health care.
If we wish to see substantive free market health, there must be a conversation about alternatives to insurance.
The only way to have a substantive conversation is for people to meet and talk.
For five years, I've had the goal of holding a meeting of people interested in free market health care reform. The meeting would discuss the mathematics of financing health care with the goal of defining an alternative to insurance.
Insurance is the problem in health care and not the solution.
Perhaps the fact that progressives seek to use insurance to regulate guns might wake people up to the perverse effects of insurance.
The gun industry is in the same situation as the health care industry was a half century ago. The industry is balking at insurance. Once insurance is imposed, the conservative groups that benefit from the insurance would become the primary advocates of gun insurance and they would seek to silence anyone opposed to the insurance. Just as conservatives actively silence critics of health insurance.
The insurance companies would charge gun owners a premium year each for the privilege of gun ownership. This premium would make a huge pool to compensate anyone who experiences gun violence.
Juries are sympathetic to victims of crimes. Juries are likely to award huge settlements whenever a case strikes them thusly; so the premiums for gun insurance will be massive.
Because juries would award enormous settlements from the insurance pool, the premiums from the pool would be huge. The huge premiums mean that the gun control advocates could control guns by fiat through administrative rules of the insurance company.
For example, awards are likely to be higher if the crime involved a scary looking gun with a large magazine. This would allow regulators in the insurance industry to charge higher premiums for AR-type guns than for pistols.
It is likely that the gun insurance would be sold by groups like the NRA. The money would be held by insurance companies that make huge contributions to politicos on the left and right. So, once the insurance gets started, politicians will give the insurance bi-partisan support.
Imagined for a moment that the NRA made millions by selling insurance. Once that happens, then preserving the income stream of insurance would become a higher priority of the group than defending the second amendment.
The economic effect of gun insurance is that the insurance would transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from middle class gun owners to the ruling elite in the centralized banks.
Now, I admit. I am not all that interested in guns.
The thing is that insurance has had the same perverse effect in health care.
Health Insurance was designed by progressives as a tool for regulating health care.
Progressives developed health insurance as a tool to regulate health care through privately owned firms.
Although health insurance involves private corporations, health insurance has the same perverse effects as direct government control of health care.
If we wish to see substantive free market health, there must be a conversation about alternatives to insurance.
The only way to have a substantive conversation is for people to meet and talk.
For five years, I've had the goal of holding a meeting of people interested in free market health care reform. The meeting would discuss the mathematics of financing health care with the goal of defining an alternative to insurance.
Insurance is the problem in health care and not the solution.
Perhaps the fact that progressives seek to use insurance to regulate guns might wake people up to the perverse effects of insurance.
The gun industry is in the same situation as the health care industry was a half century ago. The industry is balking at insurance. Once insurance is imposed, the conservative groups that benefit from the insurance would become the primary advocates of gun insurance and they would seek to silence anyone opposed to the insurance. Just as conservatives actively silence critics of health insurance.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Substantive Ideas
As mentioned in the last post, The Wyoming Liberty Group is trying to stand up for liberty.
The group has done a phenomenal job in reading legislation and organizing people against the Left's health care power grab, but the group does not have a single substantive idea on the table.
The only idea they are pushing this season is the absurd notion that people should be able to buy insurance across state lines. Regina Meena's justification for this position is that state borders create a fractured pool.
She is actually using the exact same argument that the Left uses to justify single payer. The left claims that existence of private insurance creates a fractured pool and that, to achieve social justice, we must have one and only one pool.
Ms. Meena's argument for buying insurance across state lines is the exact same argument for single payer care. Because conservatives capitulate on the foundations, they capitulate our entire nation to the forces of socialism.
If I accepted Ms Meena's core belief that health care must be funded through insurance, I would actually support Obama and PPACA because PPACA does a better job realizing her arguments than the free market.
The reason Conservatives have no substantive ideas on the table is because Conservatives are unwilling to engage in a substantive debate about health care.
In my opinion, a substantive debate would question the assumption that insurance is the only way to fund health care.
My guess is that the Wyoming Liberty Group gets funding from insurance companies.
So, here I am writing a letter to Ms. Meena stating that I believe the problem in health care is the use of group funding from individual consumption (insurance) and that the solution is to create an alternative to insurance centered on savings accounts.
My position is both against her core beliefs and is likely against the beliefs of the insurance companies that fund the Wyoming Liberty Group Funding.
Why would these people want to listen to a pariah (I am not LDS) who claims that INSURANCE IS THE PROBLEM. The way to defeat ObamaCare is to create an alternative to insurance.
My stomping across Wyoming to challenge the core belief of Conservatism that insurance is some sort of all-knowing-god that showers health care on the people is absurd.
I don't want to be the ugly activist that muscles his way before crowds to condemn them for their beliefs.
As I write my letter challenging the belief that insurance is the only way to fund health care, and it rips at my heart.
Pretty much all Conservative Think tanks take money from insurance. A substantive debate about alternatives to insurance needs to take place in a new group.
A case in point. Twenty nine minutes into the following video by Sven Larson and Amy Edmonds, the Wyoming Liberty Group begins talking about the Wyoming Taxpayer's Association which has a history of supporting higher taxes. Amy Edmonds points out that the Wyoming Taxpayers' Association is funded by an industry group that wants to reduce its share of the tax burden. So the association advocates raising the taxes of others.
The perspective from which this group argues ends up favoring most tax increases.
My game of trying to get groups funded by insurance to engage in a substantive debate on health care is absurd.
The only way a real authentic conservation could take place is if people were willing to form a new group to engage in the debate. This is why I created the Health Care Advocate Association but I can't get anywhere until I find people willing to engage in a substantive exploration of health care.
The group has done a phenomenal job in reading legislation and organizing people against the Left's health care power grab, but the group does not have a single substantive idea on the table.
The only idea they are pushing this season is the absurd notion that people should be able to buy insurance across state lines. Regina Meena's justification for this position is that state borders create a fractured pool.
She is actually using the exact same argument that the Left uses to justify single payer. The left claims that existence of private insurance creates a fractured pool and that, to achieve social justice, we must have one and only one pool.
Ms. Meena's argument for buying insurance across state lines is the exact same argument for single payer care. Because conservatives capitulate on the foundations, they capitulate our entire nation to the forces of socialism.
If I accepted Ms Meena's core belief that health care must be funded through insurance, I would actually support Obama and PPACA because PPACA does a better job realizing her arguments than the free market.
The reason Conservatives have no substantive ideas on the table is because Conservatives are unwilling to engage in a substantive debate about health care.
In my opinion, a substantive debate would question the assumption that insurance is the only way to fund health care.
My guess is that the Wyoming Liberty Group gets funding from insurance companies.
So, here I am writing a letter to Ms. Meena stating that I believe the problem in health care is the use of group funding from individual consumption (insurance) and that the solution is to create an alternative to insurance centered on savings accounts.
My position is both against her core beliefs and is likely against the beliefs of the insurance companies that fund the Wyoming Liberty Group Funding.
Why would these people want to listen to a pariah (I am not LDS) who claims that INSURANCE IS THE PROBLEM. The way to defeat ObamaCare is to create an alternative to insurance.
My stomping across Wyoming to challenge the core belief of Conservatism that insurance is some sort of all-knowing-god that showers health care on the people is absurd.
I don't want to be the ugly activist that muscles his way before crowds to condemn them for their beliefs.
As I write my letter challenging the belief that insurance is the only way to fund health care, and it rips at my heart.
Pretty much all Conservative Think tanks take money from insurance. A substantive debate about alternatives to insurance needs to take place in a new group.
A case in point. Twenty nine minutes into the following video by Sven Larson and Amy Edmonds, the Wyoming Liberty Group begins talking about the Wyoming Taxpayer's Association which has a history of supporting higher taxes. Amy Edmonds points out that the Wyoming Taxpayers' Association is funded by an industry group that wants to reduce its share of the tax burden. So the association advocates raising the taxes of others.
The perspective from which this group argues ends up favoring most tax increases.
My game of trying to get groups funded by insurance to engage in a substantive debate on health care is absurd.
The only way a real authentic conservation could take place is if people were willing to form a new group to engage in the debate. This is why I created the Health Care Advocate Association but I can't get anywhere until I find people willing to engage in a substantive exploration of health care.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Wyoming Liberty Group
I live in a state that has done nothing to defend free market health care.
I keep looking to other states to if they are doing anything. I was delighted to see the video by the Wyoming Liberty Group that features Regina Meena who has been working for choice in health care.
The really exciting thing about the video is that there are people in a room actually engaged in face to face communication.
If we wish to defeat ObamaCare, we have to have thousands of meetings like this.
She then states the paradoxical view that people should have freedom but that we cannot have fragmented risk pools. But if people have freedom, we will automatically have fragmented risk pools.
To defeat ObamaCare there has to be many meetings that discuss health care at a fundamental level.
I was just doing the arithmetics. Cheyenne is 444 miles from Salt Lake City. A round trip would be about 900 miles. I get over thirty miles a gallon; So, I would need 30 gallons of gas. That would be about $100. Two hotel nights is about $100.
Borrowing money and driving to Cheyenne is do-able.
I will write to this group and see if they are willing to host a meeting on free market health care. If any reader is familiar with Wyoming Liberty Group, could you please contact them and give them a nudge.
I keep looking to other states to if they are doing anything. I was delighted to see the video by the Wyoming Liberty Group that features Regina Meena who has been working for choice in health care.
The really exciting thing about the video is that there are people in a room actually engaged in face to face communication.
If we wish to defeat ObamaCare, we have to have thousands of meetings like this.
Critiques on the Meeting
Ms. Meena has realized that the key to defeating ObamaCare is choice. Unfortunately, she is concentrating on buying insurance across state lines.She then states the paradoxical view that people should have freedom but that we cannot have fragmented risk pools. But if people have freedom, we will automatically have fragmented risk pools.
To defeat ObamaCare there has to be many meetings that discuss health care at a fundamental level.
I was just doing the arithmetics. Cheyenne is 444 miles from Salt Lake City. A round trip would be about 900 miles. I get over thirty miles a gallon; So, I would need 30 gallons of gas. That would be about $100. Two hotel nights is about $100.
Borrowing money and driving to Cheyenne is do-able.
I will write to this group and see if they are willing to host a meeting on free market health care. If any reader is familiar with Wyoming Liberty Group, could you please contact them and give them a nudge.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
I Know There is No Hope, But My Heart Keeps Saying There Is
I admit. I am depressed out of my gourd.
I spent four years and all my personal resources trying to find someone who is brave enough to discuss real free market health care reform. (Buying insurance across state lines or adding an HSA to high deductible insurance is not reform).
The opportunity to repeal ObamaCare is gone and lost forever.
But there is a little optimist deep in my heart that keeps urging me onward.
A group willing to discuss free market health care reform could change things.
I guess I need to explain why I still see hope.
As it happens, I was a math major in College. I was deeply interested in the foundations of math and logic and held the dream of becoming a high school math teacher. My long term goal was to write a high school level calculus book.
At the time, the Education Department at the University of Utah was using school choice as a litmus test for qualification for teaching in the state. I was pro-school choice and was filtered out. The story is funny. I was required to write an essay against school choice. My essay wasn't just for choice, I advocated that teachers owned the school and ended my essay with the words "Workers of the world untie!"
The professor was livid. She circled the word "untie," and wrote "UNITE." She showed the essay to other members of the department and I received Fs in three classes that quarter for one play on words.
So, I ended up doing what math majors do. I started working in insurance. Specifically, I worked for a state run insurance company.
I saw that insurance was doing to health care what progressives had done to education. My job was to write computer programs for analyzing claims. My programs needed to let actuaries and auditors drill down to the details of each policyholders claims history. So, I spent a lot of time with auditors and discovered that there were numerous cases in which people died because their insurance company let them down.
I also discovered the hidden secret of state run health care.
The secret is that the politically powerful always get better care than the disenfranchised.
Progressives wax philosophic about equality, but the politically powerful will always get more than the disenfranchised.
Having spent my academic career studying the foundations of math and logic, it was abundantly clear to me that the insurance paradigm was structurally flawed.
The fact that anyone is willing to work in that horrific industry boggles my mind. Where's the decency?
The fact that anyone in good conscious could work in insurance makes me weep for my species.
As I studied the data, I could see thousands of people trapped in insurance policies that were systematically undermining both their health and their community.
I could not in good conscious accept checks from an insurance company; so I left and set myself to the task of reverse-engineering and insurance pool along free market principles.
The question in the forefront of my mind has been: How do you break an insurance pool into individual accounts.
I collected my thoughts and gave the process the working name: "The Medical Savings and Loan."
Having created the Medical Savings and Loan, I approached health care and asked how would a data driven health system evolve in a free market.
My program could either be built from scratch or it could be created by re-engineering an insurance pool.
In a third experiment I asked: What would I do if I were made the Health Care Czar?
I can talk for hours about the effects the creation of the Medical Savings and Loan would have on social policy.
For example, we, as a society, want to care for the poor. What happens if a person who has no insurance has a medical emergency or needs primary care?
Right now the person shows up at the emergency room. The hospital pays the bill and charges the expenses to others.
From a social policy, the Medical Savings and Loan works as follows: We would give anyone needing care a loan. The second that you accept the loan, you are thrown into a structured savings system and given career guidance to minimize the burden you place on society.
There is money for people who need care. They would decide if they want to take out a big loan for the emergency room, or take out a smaller loan and visit a clinic.
As you see, health care is a multidimensional topic. A robust health care solution must make sense from multiple perspectives.
I built my program from an individual perspective of care, but it also looks beautiful from a social perspectives.
In my presentation I actually look at health care from multiple perspectives. I look at care from the individual perspective, from the doctor's perspective and a social service perspective.
I spend a great deal of time discussing funding care from an economic stand point.
For example, insurance creates an artificial concentration of wealth. When we put our health care resources into a common pool, the people who control the pool become wealthy and the policyholders diminish. Creating an alternative to insurance would actually do more to bridge the gap between rich and poor than Obama's hefty tax plan.
Insurance plays a role in our nation's debt crisis. Traditionally people saved for their health care. Insurance replaces savings with a pay-as-you-go scheme. Restoring the concept of self-funded care would do more to alleviate our nation's debt crisis than the current wrangling over the debt ceiling.
My goal has been to create a mathematical model for self-funded care that could be implemented as a business plan.
I love to talk about how the Medical Savings and Loan could be implemented as a network of businesses.
But I can also present the ideas as a collection of principles.
For example, one of my foundational principles is: "Those who can self fund their care should."
Isn't that a beautiful and concise principle?
The natural corollary of the first principle is that people who cannot self-fund their care need assistance.
Duh?
Are people so dense that they cannot fathom that a principle has a corollary?
We can express the idea clearly in Set Theory.
The set of people who can self-fund care is distinct from those who cannot.
The group of people who can self-fund care is different from the group of people who cannot.
Our social policy is founded on the absurd notion that these two distinct groups of people must be shoved into the same program.
If we started with the principle that those who can self fund their care should and recorded all health expenses, then we will discover those who cannot.
It's that simple.
Insurance, in contrast, is a complex and ugly bastard. We put all of our health resources in a common pool and reduce everyone in our society to dependency then have shrill political battles as the wolves in the halls of power tear about the common pool.
There are other principles. For example, I believe strongly that people own their own body. Since people own their body's they should own the resources needed to care for their body.
Please ask yourself this question. What is the name given to people who don't own their body? If someone else owns your body, then you are a _ _ _ _ _?!
Another foundational principle is that since people own their bodies, they (not the insurance company) should own the data related to the care of the body.
I can express the Medical Savings and Loan as a mathematical model or as a collection of principles.
In my opinion this is good system design.
We can build the model from the principles or abstract out the principles from the model.
Since health care is a data intensive program, I personally believe the best path to free market health care reform is to start with an existing insurance pool and reverse engineering it along free market principles.
Let's say we had good data from an insurance pool. The first thing we would do is figure out how many people in the pool could self fund their care and how much money was needed by the people who could not self fund their care.
We would then set aside more than enough money to care for the people in need in a grant program.
Now let's look at the people who care self fund their care. It turns out that health expenses are unpredictable. People's health savings will not match up perfectly with their health needs.
So, my program would look at the data to see how often and when people who can self fund their care need additional assistance.
The data driven program would create a loan reserve to cover the expenses.
I want to have a huge loan reserve that is multiple times the expected amount of the loans. So, in my program the medical savings accounts own the loan reserves.
So, while the principles are easy to discuss, the implementation of the program would involved continuous detailed analysis of health care data.
For that matter. One of the founding principles of the Medical Savings and Loan is: "We live in the information age. In the information age, our health care should be information driven."
The program has a mathematical model. It has a business model. It has well defined principles and is data driven.
To make this model work, there would need to be a group of dedicated professionals who will spend their careers recording and analyzing health care data. I called this core group of people "Health Care Advocates."
These people already exist in the insurance paradigm. The insurance industry is filled with people who collect and analyze data. The difference between insurance agents and healthcare advocates is that the insurance agent works for the insurance company while the advocate works directly with people.
This is simply a slight change of focus.
The reason I still have hope is my belief that if a group of people physically met in a room to talk about free market health care reform, we could create figure out how to apply the ideas from the Medical Savings and Loan and figure out how to apply them to the Health Exchanges.
As I mention at the beginning of this post. PPACA is a cynical piece of legislation. The idea is to wrap the insurance industry in a bureaucratic nightmare called a Health Exchange.
Progressives believe that the Health Exchanges would cause a systemic collapses of the insurance industry and it would then form into a shell for socialized medicine.
Insurance is mathematically unstable. The exchanges will collapse. However, if patriots were together to talk about free market health care. There is an outside chance that a group could create a structure so that the Health Exchanges collapsed into a free market structure.
My brain tells me that I should give up hope. But my heart keeps screaming that if a group of people were brave enough to discuss free market health care, that group could make a difference.
The future of America looks dark. It looks like our experiment in free society as come to an end and the the forces of socialism are so strong that there is no longer any hope of retaining freedom.
But the freedom movement has yet to try the radical approach of actually looking at health care data and discussing free market health care reform.
There is a possibility that if the defenders of freedom stopped talking about who is the most "severely conservative" and spoke about the issue of health care, that we could find a path out of this dispairing system of increased statism and diminished freedom.
I am stuck in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Utah. If only I could find a group of people willing to invest the time and resources to stand up for liberty, my heart tells me that group could make a difference.
Because Conservatives are useless sticks in the mud, we lost the opportunity to repeal ObamaCare.
However, if a small number of free thinking people in the freedom movement got together they could form a structure that would be in place to take over health care when the Health Exchanges fail.
I began by pointing out that the health exchanges in ObamaCare were designed to fail. Progessives see the exchanges as a step in the progression to socialism.
However, it is possible for a group of patriots to engineer a design such that the exchanges fail into a free market structure.
All that it takes is a group of people who are willing to sit down and do the hard work of analyzing health care data.
I am not doing this for the money. I do this because I love the American experiment in self rule.
The people who are brave enough to work on developing an alternative to insurance might make money.
The best path to restoring America is not a book, it is not a political candidate, it is not a shrill talk radio show. The path to restoring America is to create an organization dedicate 100% to exploring self-funded alternatives to insurance.
If that group existed, then when opportunities arose, it could make a difference.
The only way to start a real group is for a small number of people to physically meet in a room and talk.
I spent four years and all my personal resources trying to find someone who is brave enough to discuss real free market health care reform. (Buying insurance across state lines or adding an HSA to high deductible insurance is not reform).
The opportunity to repeal ObamaCare is gone and lost forever.
But there is a little optimist deep in my heart that keeps urging me onward.
A group willing to discuss free market health care reform could change things.
I guess I need to explain why I still see hope.
As it happens, I was a math major in College. I was deeply interested in the foundations of math and logic and held the dream of becoming a high school math teacher. My long term goal was to write a high school level calculus book.
At the time, the Education Department at the University of Utah was using school choice as a litmus test for qualification for teaching in the state. I was pro-school choice and was filtered out. The story is funny. I was required to write an essay against school choice. My essay wasn't just for choice, I advocated that teachers owned the school and ended my essay with the words "Workers of the world untie!"
The professor was livid. She circled the word "untie," and wrote "UNITE." She showed the essay to other members of the department and I received Fs in three classes that quarter for one play on words.
So, I ended up doing what math majors do. I started working in insurance. Specifically, I worked for a state run insurance company.
I saw that insurance was doing to health care what progressives had done to education. My job was to write computer programs for analyzing claims. My programs needed to let actuaries and auditors drill down to the details of each policyholders claims history. So, I spent a lot of time with auditors and discovered that there were numerous cases in which people died because their insurance company let them down.
I also discovered the hidden secret of state run health care.
The secret is that the politically powerful always get better care than the disenfranchised.
Progressives wax philosophic about equality, but the politically powerful will always get more than the disenfranchised.
Having spent my academic career studying the foundations of math and logic, it was abundantly clear to me that the insurance paradigm was structurally flawed.
The fact that anyone is willing to work in that horrific industry boggles my mind. Where's the decency?
The fact that anyone in good conscious could work in insurance makes me weep for my species.
As I studied the data, I could see thousands of people trapped in insurance policies that were systematically undermining both their health and their community.
I could not in good conscious accept checks from an insurance company; so I left and set myself to the task of reverse-engineering and insurance pool along free market principles.
The question in the forefront of my mind has been: How do you break an insurance pool into individual accounts.
I collected my thoughts and gave the process the working name: "The Medical Savings and Loan."
Having created the Medical Savings and Loan, I approached health care and asked how would a data driven health system evolve in a free market.
My program could either be built from scratch or it could be created by re-engineering an insurance pool.
In a third experiment I asked: What would I do if I were made the Health Care Czar?
I can talk for hours about the effects the creation of the Medical Savings and Loan would have on social policy.
For example, we, as a society, want to care for the poor. What happens if a person who has no insurance has a medical emergency or needs primary care?
Right now the person shows up at the emergency room. The hospital pays the bill and charges the expenses to others.
From a social policy, the Medical Savings and Loan works as follows: We would give anyone needing care a loan. The second that you accept the loan, you are thrown into a structured savings system and given career guidance to minimize the burden you place on society.
There is money for people who need care. They would decide if they want to take out a big loan for the emergency room, or take out a smaller loan and visit a clinic.
As you see, health care is a multidimensional topic. A robust health care solution must make sense from multiple perspectives.
I built my program from an individual perspective of care, but it also looks beautiful from a social perspectives.
In my presentation I actually look at health care from multiple perspectives. I look at care from the individual perspective, from the doctor's perspective and a social service perspective.
I spend a great deal of time discussing funding care from an economic stand point.
For example, insurance creates an artificial concentration of wealth. When we put our health care resources into a common pool, the people who control the pool become wealthy and the policyholders diminish. Creating an alternative to insurance would actually do more to bridge the gap between rich and poor than Obama's hefty tax plan.
Insurance plays a role in our nation's debt crisis. Traditionally people saved for their health care. Insurance replaces savings with a pay-as-you-go scheme. Restoring the concept of self-funded care would do more to alleviate our nation's debt crisis than the current wrangling over the debt ceiling.
My goal has been to create a mathematical model for self-funded care that could be implemented as a business plan.
I love to talk about how the Medical Savings and Loan could be implemented as a network of businesses.
But I can also present the ideas as a collection of principles.
For example, one of my foundational principles is: "Those who can self fund their care should."
Isn't that a beautiful and concise principle?
The natural corollary of the first principle is that people who cannot self-fund their care need assistance.
Duh?
Are people so dense that they cannot fathom that a principle has a corollary?
We can express the idea clearly in Set Theory.
The set of people who can self-fund care is distinct from those who cannot.
The group of people who can self-fund care is different from the group of people who cannot.
Our social policy is founded on the absurd notion that these two distinct groups of people must be shoved into the same program.
If we started with the principle that those who can self fund their care should and recorded all health expenses, then we will discover those who cannot.
It's that simple.
Insurance, in contrast, is a complex and ugly bastard. We put all of our health resources in a common pool and reduce everyone in our society to dependency then have shrill political battles as the wolves in the halls of power tear about the common pool.
There are other principles. For example, I believe strongly that people own their own body. Since people own their body's they should own the resources needed to care for their body.
Please ask yourself this question. What is the name given to people who don't own their body? If someone else owns your body, then you are a _ _ _ _ _?!
Another foundational principle is that since people own their bodies, they (not the insurance company) should own the data related to the care of the body.
I can express the Medical Savings and Loan as a mathematical model or as a collection of principles.
In my opinion this is good system design.
We can build the model from the principles or abstract out the principles from the model.
Since health care is a data intensive program, I personally believe the best path to free market health care reform is to start with an existing insurance pool and reverse engineering it along free market principles.
Let's say we had good data from an insurance pool. The first thing we would do is figure out how many people in the pool could self fund their care and how much money was needed by the people who could not self fund their care.
We would then set aside more than enough money to care for the people in need in a grant program.
Now let's look at the people who care self fund their care. It turns out that health expenses are unpredictable. People's health savings will not match up perfectly with their health needs.
So, my program would look at the data to see how often and when people who can self fund their care need additional assistance.
The data driven program would create a loan reserve to cover the expenses.
I want to have a huge loan reserve that is multiple times the expected amount of the loans. So, in my program the medical savings accounts own the loan reserves.
So, while the principles are easy to discuss, the implementation of the program would involved continuous detailed analysis of health care data.
For that matter. One of the founding principles of the Medical Savings and Loan is: "We live in the information age. In the information age, our health care should be information driven."
The program has a mathematical model. It has a business model. It has well defined principles and is data driven.
To make this model work, there would need to be a group of dedicated professionals who will spend their careers recording and analyzing health care data. I called this core group of people "Health Care Advocates."
These people already exist in the insurance paradigm. The insurance industry is filled with people who collect and analyze data. The difference between insurance agents and healthcare advocates is that the insurance agent works for the insurance company while the advocate works directly with people.
This is simply a slight change of focus.
The reason I still have hope is my belief that if a group of people physically met in a room to talk about free market health care reform, we could create figure out how to apply the ideas from the Medical Savings and Loan and figure out how to apply them to the Health Exchanges.
As I mention at the beginning of this post. PPACA is a cynical piece of legislation. The idea is to wrap the insurance industry in a bureaucratic nightmare called a Health Exchange.
Progressives believe that the Health Exchanges would cause a systemic collapses of the insurance industry and it would then form into a shell for socialized medicine.
Insurance is mathematically unstable. The exchanges will collapse. However, if patriots were together to talk about free market health care. There is an outside chance that a group could create a structure so that the Health Exchanges collapsed into a free market structure.
My brain tells me that I should give up hope. But my heart keeps screaming that if a group of people were brave enough to discuss free market health care, that group could make a difference.
The future of America looks dark. It looks like our experiment in free society as come to an end and the the forces of socialism are so strong that there is no longer any hope of retaining freedom.
But the freedom movement has yet to try the radical approach of actually looking at health care data and discussing free market health care reform.
There is a possibility that if the defenders of freedom stopped talking about who is the most "severely conservative" and spoke about the issue of health care, that we could find a path out of this dispairing system of increased statism and diminished freedom.
I am stuck in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Utah. If only I could find a group of people willing to invest the time and resources to stand up for liberty, my heart tells me that group could make a difference.
Because Conservatives are useless sticks in the mud, we lost the opportunity to repeal ObamaCare.
However, if a small number of free thinking people in the freedom movement got together they could form a structure that would be in place to take over health care when the Health Exchanges fail.
I began by pointing out that the health exchanges in ObamaCare were designed to fail. Progessives see the exchanges as a step in the progression to socialism.
However, it is possible for a group of patriots to engineer a design such that the exchanges fail into a free market structure.
All that it takes is a group of people who are willing to sit down and do the hard work of analyzing health care data.
I am not doing this for the money. I do this because I love the American experiment in self rule.
The people who are brave enough to work on developing an alternative to insurance might make money.
The best path to restoring America is not a book, it is not a political candidate, it is not a shrill talk radio show. The path to restoring America is to create an organization dedicate 100% to exploring self-funded alternatives to insurance.
If that group existed, then when opportunities arose, it could make a difference.
The only way to start a real group is for a small number of people to physically meet in a room and talk.
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