Health Care Freedom in an Independent Wisconsin Republic

When we talk about healthcare in Wisconsin, it is ultimately about Wisconsin citizens providing care for the people of Wisconsin. No matter how much of a role the federal government takes in our healthcare, doctors from Washington will not appear out of nowhere to take care of us. We are capable of taking care of ourselves and indeed, are already doing so.

Healthcare deeply affects all of us. Therefore debates are often heated. The left accuses the right of not caring for the poor. The right accuses the left of being communists. But many on the left are driven to government out of love for people because it pains them to see their fellow human beings suffering under the current system. They should be respected for their humanitarianism. Many on the right care equally deeply about people. They know that its the free market that has lifted the standard of living to unimaginable levels for billions of people, while centrally administered systems lead to stagnation and poverty. They should be equally respected for this view.

It is from this common ground of the desire to help our fellow human beings, that we as free thinking people can have a rational dialogue about how to best care for each other. There is no question that our current healthcare system has significant failures and that we are greatly in need of reform. However the current “reform” proposals offer very little in the way of fundamentally changing the system. The general assumption continues that the solution is always more government intervention. But people certainly can take care of each other without massive government programs.

The primary problems with the healthcare system are limited access and soaring prices. We need reform that promotes lower prices, greater access and increased quality. The only system known for accomplishing these three desirable outcomes is the market system. Centrally planned government programs are not known for their ability to improve efficiency, lower costs or improve quality. In fact quite the opposite is true. Government is renowned for coming in over budget with less than satisfactory results. People argue that Medicare is efficient and should be extended to everyone. However, medicare costs are also rising dramatically and are on pace to overtake all of the federal budget within two decades. This is not a sustainable model in the long term. True market reform with gradual removal of the government from the system could accomplish our desired goals without adding trillions to a budget that is already pushing our nation into bankruptcy.

We must move toward a more streamlined, effective and less bureaucratic health-care delivery network. Many people are dependent on our current coercive system and we must not pull the rug out from underneath anyone during the transition. Instead, we should work to wean ourselves off of failing government programs as we develop a more rational, locally accountable system. In place of the current medical bureaucracy, we could allow the same market forces that create lower prices and higher quality in every other area of our lives, create lower healthcare costs and therefore increased access and quality for those who so badly need it.

This could be accomplished through a series of legislative reforms and industry initiatives that change the current system from one of primarily third party payers to one in which the consumers of healthcare pay for the majority of the care they receive. This would end the current scheme in which the parties responsible for paying the medical bills compete over who can most effectively shift the bill to someone else, and replace it with a system where the providers of healthcare compete on providing the best value to patients. The environment of medicine could also be changed through tort reform. This would allow providers the freedom to move away from the practice of defensive medicine that burdens our current system with unnecessary cost.

These changes could prevent the bankruptcy of our social safety net and allow us to care for those dependent on government. Eventually as healthcare costs are driven down by the market, we could see a resurgence in charity care that used to define the compassion of American healthcare. This would also allow insurance to function in its proper role of protecting against catastrophic illness instead of its current form of "prepaid healthcare."

We all know that power corrupts. Giving bureaucrats in Washington control over health-care has created ample opportunity for corruption, lack of accountability and skyrocketing prices. Could we expect anything less if additional power is given to them? As we have seen, the influence of lobbyists has taken precedence over the interests of the people. By returning power over healthcare to the local level, decisions will be more accountable to the people and less prone to corruption. Politically driven laws that connect health insurance to jobs could also be abolished. This would remove an outdated tax system that only serves well connected corporations with a competitive system in which all citizens can effectively obtain coverage regardless of job status.

The current system allows insurance companies to collect premiums from young healthy patients for years but then lets the companies off the hook when the people turn 65. People then go on medicare where they consume, on average, much more healthcare. The companies keep the profits and the taxpayers pay the bills. By phasing out our welfare programs the responsibility for providing care falls back to the companies that are providing the insurance. People should be able to purchase lifelong medical policies. Parents could buy them for their children. Such a policy could never be lost if someone changed their job. People would not be denied based on preexisting conditions. Best of all, this would create massive financial incentives for companies to invest in preventative care. If companies knew that they would be responsible for paying for their fair share of $200,000 bypass surgeries, you can bet they would be doing everything they can to find ways of making sure as few people need these procedures as possible. These sorts of market reforms have the potential to help us realize everything we want to accomplish in healthcare reform: increased access, higher quality and lower cost. This can all be accomplished while reducing the size of government, increasing freedom, and empowering people to become active participants in their health.

Perhaps you disagree with market driven healthcare and believe that the government should continue to buy nearly half of all healthcare goods and services or even take total control of the system. Whatever you think is a legitimate function of government, it should happen on the most local level possible. The more local it is, the more likely it is to be the right model to serve the people. There is simply no need for a gigantic federal medical bureaucracy. We should celebrate diversity in America by allowing communities to organize services for themselves, rather than imposing a “one size fits all” model from the top down. This is the best way to achieve the noble goal of providing the best healthcare for the people of Wisconsin, and for all Americans.