If you want a textbook example of how to “bend the cost curve down,” I recommend taking a look at the state of Indiana and how it funds health care for its employees. The governor, Mitch Daniels, explained it yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. The state of Indiana puts $2,750 into a medical savings account for every state employee who signs up for this sort of coverage. (When it started five years ago, 4 percent signed up; this year 70 percent signed up.) The employee then pays all medical expenses out of that account. If there is money left over at the end of the year, it’s the employee’s to keep. If expenses exceed that sum, the state shares expenses up to an out-of-pocket maximum of $8,000 and covers all expenses above that sum.
The program has been a huge success, saving millions for both employees and the state. Why? As Governor Daniels explains,
It turns out that, when someone is spending his own money alone for routine expenses, he is far more likely to ask the questions he would ask if purchasing any other good or service: “Is there a generic version of that drug?” “Didn’t I take that same test just recently?” “Where can I get the colonoscopy at the best price?”
My wife and I have a Health Savings Account plan. It works. We watch exactly what the doctors recommend and keep an eye out for less expensive options on every visit. The plans in Washington don’t like those accounts, don’t like Medicare Advantage, don’t like anything that empowers citizens to choose for themselves.
They want you enfeebled and dependent on bureaucrats for your health care.
Reform should be about empowering citizens, not engorging the bureaucracy at public expense.
My wife and I have HSAs and love them.
A way to save MASSIVE amounts of money on health care would be to limit what legal scumbags can get from suing doctors and hospitals. Tort reform would really reduce the cost of running hospitals and doctors office (by massively reduce the currently obscene cost malpractice insurance).
But, Saint Obama is in the pocket of the trail
lawyers. SO, don’t expect any “Hope and Change”!
I should have added – if tort reform was realized, then doctors could charge you folks a lot less than they do now. This may mean a cut in your HSA, but you would not need anywhere as much as you do now.
I have heard that the average doctor pays about $50,000 per year in malpractice insurance premiums. This is before he even opens the door to see patients.
We’ve had an HSA and a high-deductible plan for a while now and it works out great for us. Guess what you couldn’t have under Obamacare? Yep. An HSA coupled with a high-deductible policy. Why not? Because the government “needs” your comp-coverage subsidies to make their plan come even close to working.
No, under ObamaCare I will NOT be able to keep the policy I like.