How to Logically Fix the Affordable Care Act
Calling Healthcare By Its Generic Name: A Retail System
The healthcare system of America is a retail system. And with all other retail systems, one must use buying incentives to attract buyers to it. For the Affordable Care Act to have the balance of healthy buyers to offset the costs of the sick, previous-conditions, and elderly buyers, it needs to offer the healthy buyers an incentive to use the system. What is that healthy buyers have repeatedly said they wanted? The opportunity to pay for only what they think they will need. So, that’s the buying incentive. Here’s how to make the incentive into a reality.
It's a Simple Step
By adding a low-cost catastrophe only option to the ACA and allowing additional benefits to be purchased separately under this option, the healthy buyers get exactly what they want. Keep all the other package deals (options) in place for the other buyers and you have an attractive retail system.
Chain Reaction of the Participants
Healthy buyers are attracted to use the ACA with the added comfort of being able to customize their benefits.
Insurance companies are attracted to use the ACA because the healthy buyers are not only 100% profit but now additional profit based on how many additional benefits they purchase.
Medical providers and facilities have more leverage in negotiations of contract costs now that the insurance companies want them to accept their plans.
With the 80-20 profit rule in place (80% on medical research/development/supplies and 20% on profit margins) the insurance companies will have the incentive to use their corporate lawyers against any investor who tries to cut into those profit margins with obscene drug price hikes. Big money fighting big money is much better odds than any morality argument can produce.
The natural competition of the consumers using the marketplace will actually lower the prices since all the other costs have been addressed. If the raw material costs of no. 1-4 of this list were left untouched this marketplace price competition would result in the competing companies being slightly less than each other as overall costs rose. Such an environment leads to easy monopolies. But by addressing the raw material costs first, now the consumer has leverage and the prices should lower.
Once everyone is using the same system, the idea of universal healthcare becomes more feasible without shocking the system. Such a move would require uniform cooperation, so having everyone using a localized source such as the ACA marketplace is a positive step into that reality.
Additonal Cost to the Taxpayer?
None. Buying incentives do not cost to add to a sales option. They create profit, but they do not cost anything to have it. It’s a price category.
Increase Consumer Confidence (optional)
Allow the purchasing of additional benefits year-round under this option and the healthy consumer is more confident to use the system knowing that an unplanned medical event will not bankrupt them.
