Reverse the Status Quo to Liberate Health Care

While it’s easy — and important — to point out the shortcomings of government-run health care, it’s also useful to remember how to get out of the mess we’re in.

Roy Cardato provides a reminder:

Reform that challenges the status quo would dramatically reduce government involvement in health care and health insurance markets. People should be free to purchase their own health insurance plans without being punished by the tax code. They should be free to purchase any bundle of insurance services that they desire from whatever company is offering the best deal, no matter where it is located. They should not be forced to buy coverage that will never be used. CON laws should be abolished, eliminating the Soviet-style central planning of health-care services markets.

Other reforms should include relaxing licensing laws that prevent trained health-care professionals from rendering needed services. Another reform should target the tort system, which pushes malpractice insurance rates to levels that drive doctors out of their chosen specialties, especially obstetrics and gynecology. And ultimately, Medicare and Medicaid should be privatized, removing the government from the health insurance business altogether. Aid to seniors and the poor should be provided through a system of vouchers that empower people to own their own insurance plans, lifting them out from under the health-care bureaucracy.

You can read the whole thing at the CarolinaJournal.

Cross-posted from State House Call.

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