Turbo-Charge Patient Freedom.

AuthorVliet, Elizabeth Lee
PositionECONOMIC OBSERVER

FREE MARKETS IN MEDICINE are not broken. They simply have not been allowed to work since 1944 when wartime Federal policies began disturbing market forces. Federal control of prices and service delivery further expanded following the Medicare Act of 1965. Then, ObamaCare crushed medical insurance plans, doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, medical device makers and home health agencies under an avalanche of expanded government control. Costs exploded. Patients suffered with fewer options for doctors, hospitals, and access to treatment.

Pres. Donald Trump now seeks ways to unleash patient choices by eliminating many Obama-era rules and regulations that drive up costs and limit medical freedom.

* Trump is urging the Department of Labor to expand the use of Association Health Plans, which allow Americans of shared interests and connections to join groups that form health insurance plans they control. AHPs offer three major advantages: potentially huge cost savings; escape from state-based required coverages; and employees more easily able to keep current health plans if they change jobs. It is estimated that AHPs will cost about $9,700 less per year by 2022 than the individual market.

* Trump proposes that the Department of Health and Human Services expand access to Short Term Health Plans and allow guaranteed renewability. Under Pres. Barack Obama, these plans were limited to 90 days of coverage and could not be renewed. Secretary Alex Azar is expected to extend the Short Term Plan limit to 364 days. Coverage is estimated to cost on average $342 a month vs. $619 per month for an ObamaCare Exchange plan. If consumers are allowed to retain renewable plans long term, these plans would resemble what medical insurance used to be, and patients with expensive illnesses would not be forced back on the higher cost Obama-Care Exchanges.

* Turbo-charge free-market changes by allowing patients to use their Health Savings Account funds to reimburse physicians who offer "direct-pay" practices free of insurance controls. Such practices may be called Direct Primary Care, Concierge Medicine, or simply Fee-for-Service. Before the 1980s, when managed care came to dominate, patients paid doctors directly. Costs were lower, and insurance company bureaucrats did not have to "approve" treatment. Some direct pay practices also offer medications at far lower costs than available on Medicare Rx plans. Direct-pay options are sweeping the country, as patients...

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