The biggest issue with our health care system, aside from the fact that it leaves many Americans uncovered, is the costs. Washington has tired to get control of these costs with Medicare but have failed because they are providing the wrong incentives to Doctors and Hospitals. To control costs the government just mandated cost cuts. Unfortunately for the politicians the Doctors are not very excited about making less money so they just started adding in more tests and doctors visits to make up for the lost revenue of government health care. What we need to do is reward doctors for a combination of results and costs. Some issues require a lot of money to treat successfully while others are relatively cheap to get good results.
The problem is that as soon as you suggest such a plan Republicans freak out and claim that the government will decide who gets medical attention and who doesn't. Rationing and Death panels are other common fear mongering tactics against the idea of controlling medical costs. Right now the only real death panel we have is insisting on keeping the system as it is.
To incentivize successful low cost health care practices you need to have a base line. The Presidents independent payment advisory board would be able to provide this baseline. This is standard for business so it's a wonder that Republicans go ape-shit over the idea. It saves money. This will allow more people to get health care not less. This should lead to better service not worse. Doctors want to save as many people as possible and this will give them the tools to do so. The only problem is this might hurt bad doctors. Shouldn't Republicans support the best doctors making more money and bad doctors either improving or moving on? Maybe the real problem here is the incentives for our Republican politicians.
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