An Obamacare Lifeline

An Obamacare Lifeline

With the poor initial showing of Obamacare, the administration needs a plan B. A plan that would be sure to be cheered would be one in which everyone got a big chunk of money (the standard Progressive solution), everyone gets to control his own medical care (the conservative solution). And the market forces will again be used to control costs.

The plan would be to add a new option to the Obamacare which has a different form to pivot to: A Health Savings Account (HSA). Using the obamacare web site, the new option would appear which would eliminate the penalty (as the other options), would allow the HSA to be subsidized (as in the existing options), It could allow the user to pay for all healthcare using a special debit card (like food stamps)

To each according to his needs: the HSA would be funded using the individuals financial status to determine the amount of money to add to the HSA to allow the individual to pay for his healthcare. To save money, the funding would be a one time thing, with new borns being funded when he is enrolled. Again to save money, the individual who had no money from government for his HSA, could fund it with the current unfunded liability he is owed due to Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid. Many could be allowed to transfer from tax-free retirement accounts (IRA, 401K) to fund their HSA. Finally the very rich could be allowed to transfer before tax funds into HSA to achieve a needed HSA balance.

Preexisting conditions and newly discovered sever conditions could be covered by addition infusions into the HSA to maintain its ability pay for needed healthcare.

Death panels: Make this an individual choice. Make the HSA so the balance is transferred to the individuals children upon death. When no limit is set, the individual would be cared for until out of funds. They would avoid treatments which are unreasonably expensive but only continue the very expensive end of life care for an affordable time. No child wants to pull the plug on a loved one. This allows the individual to create an end of life directive which would do the plug pulling via the directions of the individual. For those who are super Rich, the HSA could be funded to allow all possible unreasonably expensive treatments. This way the super rich will fund the leading edge of healthcare treatment development.