I have friends who are hotly debating healthcare reform. I’m not too knowledgeable about the situation, but it seems to me the biggest problem with the cost of healthcare has more to do with civil law than anything else.
Medical care cost so much because it is so easy to sue a doctor for malpractice. Doctors, self-serving, god-like creatures that they are, don’t like being sued for saving lives so they have to carry large amounts of insurance. The insurance companies don’t like to shell out their profits so they charge exorbitant rates for their coverage. Doctors, realizing how much they have to pay, pass the buck along to their patients (HMOs too).
I would imagine, if the laws governing malpractice changed, the cost of medical care would go down… at least in theory, but lets be honest… a lot of doctors probably still wouldn’t lower their fees because most of them like to live within a certain standard and Maserattis and houses on the beach don’t come cheap.
If I was in control, aside from automatically executing pedophiles, I would also make medical school free… then I would make anyone who wants to be a doctor serve 15 years in a state run medical facility giving people free medical treatments and advice. After they serve their 15 years in the system, they have to serve 5 years instructing at the medical school. After that, they are free to open their own practice. I would also make citizenship mandatory before being accepted in a US medical school to keep the riffraff out.