Politico just released a poll of hypothetical 2020 Presidential candidates

[Kinser79]

(03-11-2017, 05:37 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Honestly, I suspect it's an issue of pricing. Opaque, arbitrary, inefficient pricing.

Possibly.  The whole idea behind employer based health care insurance was during WW2 there were caps put on the wages employers could offer employees.  Naturally since wars cause full employment, and there were these caps employers started to offer "other benefits" to their employees to either attract workers or keep them from going to the war plant down the street.  (Not much that could be done if they got drafted unless they were in a vital industry--my Interbellum Great Uncle got called up four times but was not conscripted because he was a semi-skilled laborer in an ice plant that produce dry ice for shipping out perishable rations or some thing to that effect.  Never got the details from him.)

As such since it was a matter of adjusters, corporate bureaucrats and accountants all talking to each other that leads to tons of loopholes, tricks and twists and turns and other instruments to make it too complex for someone without specialist training to understand.  This of course leads directly to Opaque, arbitrary and inefficient pricing--exacerbated because the charges for services are now paid not by the consumer to the producer but by a third party to the producer on behalf of a consumer.

Over all I think if we're talking about health insurance alone as being the problem the quick, clean and not dirty way to do it is to simply open up all the markets to everyone, across state lines, and allow people to buy their own plans.  At the same time we should abolish the employer based health insurance program...it add to corporate overhead and makes it far more difficult to run and start businesses.

On top of that if people buy their own insurance, it follows them whether they work for company ABC or company XYZ.  It would definitely end the cycle that many blue collar workers have (or at least had) of suddenly losing their insurance when the Plant laid off for retooling or whatever.

Failing such a solution, turn the issue over to the states.  I think attempting to tackle this on the federal level will result in a system that doesn't work very well, costs too much and makes everyone unhappy.