The Entrepreneurial Mind

Having been a healthcare business owner with hundreds of employees wanting healthcare coverage, I understand the frustration with our healthcare system from at least two perspectives -- as a provider and as an employer. From both perspectives I can tell you that the system we now have for healthcare payment cannot be sustained. However, most of the proposals we are hearing from the Presidential candidates will only make it worse. Just like so many questions we now face in this country, this is another case where government is not the answer.

Rudy Giuliani seems to be the only major candidate who has a solution to really address the healthcare system crisis. In the most recent debate he said:

"Health insurance should become like homeowners insurance or like car insurance: You don't cover everything in your homeowners policy. If you have a slight accident in your house, if you need to refill your oil in your car, you don't cover that with insurance. But that is covered in many of the insurance policies because they're government dominated and they're employer dominated."

I could not agree more. The mess we are in now is primarily the result of the mess that big corporations and the federal government created -- independently and through duplicitous acts throughout the latter half of the last century. Why we keep looking to either or both of them to fix the problem is beyond me. I only hope that if Giuliani is elected that this is truly a fundamental priority for him and that he can muster the will and support to fix the mess.

What is interesting is that many small businesses, out of necessity, are developing a system as Giuliani advocates ad hoc. They are sending their employees out to get individual insurance and helping to financial support that coverage through higher pay that they can offer through the savings of not providing group coverage. In many cases this takes it entirely out of the tax system, which is key to making this change in approach to healthcare payment work. There should be no tax deduction for health insurance -- period. Not corporate and not individual.

We have the best healthcare in the world. Let's not ruin it by making our method of paying for it a socialized approach. I am sure that most of my readers in other countries would testify that government systems are not effective.

For more excellent thinking on this topic see James Pethokoukis's essay writing for US News and Arnold Kling's essay at Cato's website.