

QUIZ QUESTION: Who thinks "healthcare is affordable"? Anybody? If you say it is, I have a followup question "when was the last time you or a family member were actually sick or needed healthcare?" Even folks who might be a bona fide beneficiary under the ACA will tell you there is nothing affordable about it, and the annual deductibles should you need healthcare are killing them. Dr. Gruber told us it was a tax and they were counting on the "stupidity of the American Voter" when they forced it upon us. I hear stories of folks having to "wait till next year" to go see the doctor since they cannot afford the deductibles.

So what do we do now? Republicans have never been too clever in these problem solving areas, their solution is usually to do nothing and ignore the real elephant in front of them (see what I did there?). Meanwhile, our Democratic friends think money is printed from thin air and it is their/our duty to feed, school, house and healthcare everyone, even asses who do not follow our laws (somebody got it?). Since they are both, wrong let me propose a terribly wonderful more better solution.
- I propose that we allow Every American who wants/needs healthcare to obtain services at their local VA medical center and they can pay whatever they are able (everyone pays something).
That's right, government provided healthcare (notice I did not call it free, since nothing is free). Now, this new class of patients will sit behind the service personnel in terms of waits or preference but we can handle them all. And I do not envision this "government provided healthcare to be "concierge level service" like you might find at Cedar Sinai or Johns Hopkins. This is basic government supplied coverage and we will charge the folks as much as they can pay (5% likely). I encourage all folks to participate in the more dynamic private healthcare system which is costing some folks around as much as 40% of their after-tax income.
Now based on a modest amount of research, it appears the VA system provided "healthcare" to 5.9 million customers in 2016 at a cost of $65 billion or roughly $10,972 per person. While the entire VA budget is $182 billion, the VA system itself has many other missions in addition to healthcare including benefits ($110 billion), national cemetery maintenance, various research programs, loan and mortgage assistance and several other programs. The VA balance sheet shows it has $6 billion in assets so it is very stable and can easily scale up to absorb twice the customers with twice the (or something less than twice) the absorbed cost.
Now many will deflect and talk about a few horror stories concerning VA service instead of giving this proposal serious thought. But remember how many the VA has really served since 1930. We need to provide a solution here rather than "kick the can" further down the road. I am afraid the future is more about "snowflakes needing a safe space" than someone "tightening their belt and saying get out my way, I got this" while they climb the mountain or slay the dragon. If we cannot go back, my solution works on many levels going forward. It will be way less costly to manage this benefit this way than the current ACA. More importantly, it allows those who can to provide and make choices for themselves. There is no instance where consumer choice did not make products better and more affordable. Sure the VA has problems as does every business especially those managed by the government (no offense government folks and honestly, we should be embarrassed that we have not fixed things at the VA.) My proposal assumes we fund this correctly and hire proper management. And sure this is quasi-socialized medicine but maybe not quite as bad as forced-communist medicine. In our modern progressive think-set it is assumed and perhaps necessary that we provide for the millennial snowflakes who were not taught to provide for themselves.


Let's be clear the real reason the cost of healthcare is twofold. The first and foremost reason is most humans seem to take very poor care of themselves and enjoy many habits with negative health affects. The second reason is that the "employer based insurance model" makes the consumer/employee ignorant to the true costs of the service. Unfortunately most folks do not truly value the cost of surgery or a casket until they do. By then, the price cannot be negotiated. I am calling my plan BillboCare. Please support it or come up with something better.
Sources: 2015 VA Financial Report, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Health Works Collective, Stanford Medicine, LA Times, Medicare Interactive, Kaiser Foundation, Financial Samuri