I think a MORE radical idea is looking into why costs are so high. Deferring and subsidizing the costs into other areas does not remove the problem.
Actually, it isn't that radical when you think about it from true economic terms. Unfortunately, since the 1950s, the actual consumer of healthcare (the patient) has been shielded from the costs of healthcare because of employer funded medical insurance and gobblement funded insurance. It has distorted the real economics of healthcare.
Until the 1940s people paid for their medical insurance out of their own pockets much like you would buy auto insurance. It was designed to cover catastrophic events that could financially bankrupt a family. It was very easy for actuaries to calculate the costs because they could assign risks. For example, a 24 year old with no comorbidities and a healthy life style could probably be insured for cancer and a heart attack for less than $100/month because their risk of each is lower. Conversely, someone like Ruth Bader Ginsberg with a history of two cancers and is 85 years old would be substantially higher due to age and other assorted risk factors.
But, because of the high marginal tax rates that our friends on the left are so enamored with many employers had to come up with a way to incentivize higher salaried employees who didn't want a bump in pay as the gobblement was going to get most of it. So they decided to start paying for their medical insurance as a "benefit" and of course working with the gobblement big business worked to have that benefit be allowed to be written off as a tax break. And thus employer paid medical insurance was born.
Like all schemes that distort the supply and demand of a good or service, it worked great for a lot of years but over time it created in the populace this belief that SOMEONE else should pay for their healthcare.
Then of course you have the advent of Medicare and Medicaid and the system got even more distorted. One little trick that the politicians pulled with Medicaid was that they told tax payers that they would charge "copays" to the recipients to ease the thought that it was true welfare. What they didn't tell you is that the doctor or pharmacist can't refuse service or goods if the recipient doesn't pay their copay. How do you think it took for the welfare queens to catch on to that little scam? So they essentially got it for free.
Medicare quickly unraveled when physicians who initially fought the program quickly realized that nobody was minding the store. They could charge anything they wanted, and the gobblement would just pay it. Taking Medicare patients was the quickest way to riches for a physician. Once the scheme started to become unraveled though, politicians quickly realized that it was unsustainable. Knowing that they couldn't make changes that seniors (who vote) would notice directly, the politicians decided to hit physicians and make them the bad guy. They introduced a scheme whereby they would only pay a physician 80% of what he charged for a service. So if a physician charged $100 for a service, the gobblement would cut him a check for $80. Since physicians are kinda smart people, they quickly realized that if they wanted to get paid $100, they just needed to charge $120. That went on until the gobblement got smart and decided to come up with DRGs whereby they would come up with a payment table for just about any procedure or service a physician or hospital could charge for. Got an appendectomy? Well, we are only going to pay you $1500 for it (numbers made up for illustration purposes).
I could go on, but you get the point. The bottom line is that the markets of healthcare have been so distorted for so long, I don't know if there is any going back. The true fix for bring down costs is simple from an economic standpoint. You eliminate all Medicare, Medicaid and employer based insurance. Scrap it all. You turn medical insurance into what it used to be and what auto and homeowners insurance are. You cover the big ticket items that could bankrupt your family (cancer, heart attacks, broken arms etc). Everything else? Physicals, drugs etc you pay cash just like you buy your coffee. The cost of care would decrease dramatically just be eliminating the needless paperwork and forms physicians and pharmacists have to deal with.
Unfortunately, that would be a tough pill to swallow for too many in America even those who consider themselves conservatives, although they would be less resistant than you garden variety leftist who wouldn't even consider anything less than a 100% takeover of healthcare by the federal gobblement
