• What can be done with our health care mess and how?  To examine my thought process please check:

• ●  The open letter that President Obama did not answer - "Where is the concept?"

• ●  Harvard Law School graduate does not know what insurance is - "The promise of pears on a willow tree"

• ●  It is a clash of opponents and proponents of the free market - "The debate about health care reform is not about health care"

• ●  Where are facts, and logical reasoning in the health care reform debate? - "Stone Age politics in the health care reform debate"

• ●  An outline of the solution -   "We need life cycle health risk insurance" 

• ●  Why Republicans fell short of offering a solution that could work? -  "Will Republicans ever have a viable alternative to the public option?"

• ●  President asked in the state of the Union address: I answered - "A better approach to health care reform"

• ●  Confronting  "substantial differences" - "Untouchable fundamental disagreements in the health care reform debate"   NEW!!!

•   Out of these considerations I concluded that we need:

• Life-cycle health risk insurance

   The solution

• The core of the system should be life-cycle health risk insurance, covering expensive treatments and end-of-life care.

• This insurance would step in and cover expenses above some predetermined per-year limits, cumulative limits for consecutive years, and cumulative limits over the person's lifetime.

• This insurance should not be mandatory. However, people buying this insurance should have hefty tax breaks so buying this insurance would be common.

• For covering minor medical bills, individuals would use the current system of health maintenance plans, Health Savings Accounts, or would pay out of pocket.

• Poor people would use Medicaid as they do now.

• Lifespan health risk insurance would accrue cash value. The government would guarantee this value using instruments similar to those used when guaranteeing the safety of bank deposits.

   The basics

• An individual is interested in health care for the length of his or her life, not in yearly health insurance contracts. Hence, any workable solution needs to offer lifespan coverage.

• An individual is mostly concerned about major health failures. Hence, any workable solution needs to focus on catastrophic coverage.

• Young and healthy people tend to not buy health insurance. However, without their contributions no health insurance system can work. Hence, a workable solution needs to have provisions such that a majority of young and healthy Americans would buy health insurance of their own free will.

• Only after addressing the above issues, we can implement the free market mechanisms suggested in many proposals presented by opponents of the public option. In particular:

• Individual ownership of insurance policies. There is no reason that health insurance should be chosen and paid for by an employer.

• The freedom to buy health insurance across the state borders.

• Curbing frivolous lawsuits by reforming tort liability laws.

Benefits we will have

• The main benefit will be in changing the motivations of the health insurance industry: with lifespan coverage, they will make most money by keeping their insured healthy.

• This new paradigm will invoke many programs promoting a healthy lifestyle and preventive medicine. As people will need to pay directly for these products and services, the health care industry will find the ways to offer these products and services at affordable prices.

• By definition, life cycle health risk insurance would not stop when a person becomes 65 years old. With a complementary health maintenance plan, it might offer better coverage that from Medicare. The gate should be open for switching from Medicare to the private industry plans.

I found that debating on Facebook is easier.

Please join me at my group there.

Problems we will face

• There always will be neglect and irresponsible individuals opting out of the system. If at the time of their health failure, out of compassion, they would receive the same care as people contributing to the system, then we will encourage more individuals to act irresponsibly.

• Life-cycle health risk insurance would resolve the hot-button issue of pre-existing conditions. However, being in its essence catastrophic insurance, it would leave as an issue the pay structure for minor chronic illnesses, those that would not trigger life cycle health insurance, but still could be an unbearable burden to a person of moderate means. 

  I found that debating on Facebook is easier.

  Please join me at my group there.