Celcius

Health Care Bill: Prescription for Disaster

I think the only solution to the health care problem is to break care into three categories:
Basic Care: Free clinic care for everyone (paid from federal income taxes). Only basic medical tests and proceeds are covered. Medications are provided only for short-term treatments.
Middle Care: Mandatory Coverage - Patients select from a series of nationally standardized plans. The plans work on a sliding scale of procedures paid for. Patients determine their own financial risk exposure when young; however, as you age your medical plan options diminish to reflect your personal annual medical costs - using statistical modeling. All medications must be paid by the patient - no exceptions. (employee payroll deduction.)
Catastrophic Care: Mandatory Coverage - Everyone pays for catastrophic care out of their wages. With a financial lifetime cap of $250,000 (employee payroll deduction).
*** All insurance, medical, and billing forms would have to be standardize across all providers.
*** All providers would be required to use a national medical database to store all medical records.
*** Any costs over the medical coverages would have to paid by the patient.
*** Employees have to pay for 12 months of coverage in advance to provide coverage during periods of unemployment.
*** Employees would have the option to prepay for the Middle Care and Catastrophic care beyond the 12 months advanced coverage. (Like a life insurance policy except to cover future medical risk. This model could be used to prepay for coverage during retirement via wage deductions over multiple decades.)
*** No pre-existing condition blackout periods when changing providers or plans
*** No service can be denied/declined if it is covered in the plan you pay for.

The unemployed and on welfare would have only the basic care provided by the government as an incentive to seek employment for health coverage.