@ Ron Paul Healthcare Idea - Wouldn't this just help the insurance companies?

[Reason]

http://www.caivn.org/article/2010/02...lthcare-crisis

Dr. Ron Paul and CA congressional candidate, John Dennis, have suggested alternative solutions to our problematic healthcare system: make healthcare expenses tax deductible. “We should be very generous with tax credits. Give tax credits for the entire amount of money you spend on medical care, so you can be independent,” said Paul. John Dennis suggests “making all out-of-pocket medical expenses tax deductible” and “making insurance premiums paid by individuals tax deductible.”

Wouldn't this just create a massive incentive for health insurance companies to charge a lot because people won't care if they are being reimbursed through massive tax credits?

Am I missing something here?

[cpike]

If they did that they could nearly completely defund the government too. But yeah prices would most certainly skyrocket.

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

Yeah, this is a horrible idea. It's a subsidy to the health insurance industry. I think Dr. Paul needs to read some of HH Hoppe's suggestions. Like getting rid of AMA monopoly, and getting rid of the ridiculous FDA and licensing regimes...That's a good start.

[dannno]

Ya, what you're missing is that people already get tax deductions for healthcare expenses, but only through your company healthcare plan. This would extend the same benefits to INDIVIDUALS who wish to only buy higher deductible catastrophic insurance. A lot of people would do this because most people are healthy or are already dealing with costly medical expenses that aren't covered by their insurance, and they can't buy an insurance plan if they have a pre-existing condition..

Sooo.... This will allow most people to be able to choose their own doctor, pay for services on the spot, thus introduces the free market mechanisms that help keep costs low.

[dannno]

If they did that they could nearly completely defund the government too. But yeah prices would most certainly skyrocket.

Bull$#@!.

[dannno]

Yeah, this is a horrible idea. It's a subsidy to the health insurance industry. I think Dr. Paul needs to read some of HH Hoppe's suggestions. Like getting rid of AMA monopoly, and getting rid of the ridiculous FDA and licensing regimes...That's a good start.

No, this is precisely Peter Schiff's idea for lowering healthcare costs.

Do people really not listen to what liberty candidates have to say around here

This is all of a sudden the anti-free market board or something

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

Ya, what you're missing is that people already get tax deductions for healthcare expenses, but only through your company healthcare plan. This would extend the same benefits to INDIVIDUALS who wish to only buy higher deductible catastrophic insurance. A lot of people would do this because most people are healthy or are already dealing with costly medical expenses that aren't covered by their insurance, and they can't buy an insurance plan if they have a pre-existing condition..

Sooo.... This will allow most people to be able to choose their own doctor, pay for services on the spot, thus introduces the free market mechanisms that help keep costs low.

So the solution then is to get rid of all tax subsidies to the Healthcare industry. Period. The solution is not to add even more obtuse code, privilege, and subsidy.

This, I say again, is a disastrous and horrible idea.

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

No, this is precisely Peter Schiff's idea for lowering healthcare costs.

Do people really not listen to what liberty candidates have to say around here

This is all of a sudden the anti-free market board or something

I prefer to listen to Free-Market Professors, like Murray Rothbard, HH Hoppe, Jorg Guido Hulsmann, Walter Block, etc.

You have no $#@!ing clue what the Free-Market is, if you are advocating tax subsidies, which this is exactly is. You must be a Friedmanite/Monetarist. THATS NOT FREE-MARKET.

[dannno]

Ron Paul always talks about how we have "corporate healthcare".

What he means is that there is no possible way to go out and get competitive health insurance to what your company offers, because your company is getting tax deductible insurance, whereas an individual CANNOT get tax deductible insurance. This means everybody goes on their company plan, which covers EVERYTHING. You don't get to choose your doctor based on the doctor's value (cost vs. quality), and everything is covered because you have a low deductible so everybody over-uses their health insurance benefits.

THAT IS THE REASON WHY COSTS ARE HIGH. Is because nobody "shops around" for their medical care, because it is all completely covered.

This is the BEST POSSIBLE SOLUTION to lower costs in the healthcare industry.

[dannno]

So the solution then is to get rid of all tax subsidies to the Healthcare industry. Period. The solution is not to add even more obtuse code, privilege, and subsidy.

This, I say again, is a disastrous and horrible idea.

Ya, lowering taxes is a horrible idea

I love this anti-free market board.

Look, you ALREADY HAVE tax deductible healthcare through your company.. this is just extending it to individuals so they op-out of their company healthcare plan.. they will get LESS EXPENSIVE PLANS which means LESS money will go to insurance companies and MORE money will go to individuals to spend on ACTUAL HEALTHCARE.

Do you work for the insurance companies or something??

[dannno]

Peter Schiff has thoroughly explained this concept multiple times, I don't know why it is so difficult to grasp..

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

Ya, lowering taxes is a horrible idea

I love this anti-free market board.

This isn't lowering taxes, it's just shifting the tax money to the Healthcare industry. Lowering taxes, means just that. Taking the same amount, but instead deducting the tax from your healthcare, is not a lowering of taxes. If we want to lower taxes, then lets abolish the Income, and Excise taxes.

Why is it that instead of offering a strict adherence to libertarian philosophy the so-called libertarians instead want to tinker with tax code, and programs. Sorry, the solution is to abolish these institutions.

I love this anti-free market board

This is funny, considering how ironic it is.

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

Ron Paul always talks about how we have "corporate healthcare".

What he means is that there is no possible way to go out and get competitive health insurance to what your company offers, because your company is getting tax deductible insurance, whereas an individual CANNOT get tax deductible insurance. This means everybody goes on their company plan, which covers EVERYTHING. You don't get to choose your doctor based on the doctor's value (cost vs. quality), and everything is covered because you have a low deductible so everybody over-uses their health insurance benefits.

THAT IS THE REASON WHY COSTS ARE HIGH. Is because nobody "shops around" for their medical care, because it is all completely covered.

This is the BEST POSSIBLE SOLUTION to lower costs in the healthcare industry.

Better than ending the tax subsidies that businesses get? So, let's just give this subsidy to everyone! That won't raise costs...

[dannno]

This isn't lowering taxes, it's just shifting the tax money to the Healthcare industry.

NO IT ISN'T!!!

Please read my $#@!ing posts, this is so $#@!ing simple.

You ALREADY GET TAX DEDUCTIBLE CARE. Through your company. Now you can opt-out and get a cheaper plan and spend LESS on healthcare. Not only that, you have MORE CHOICE about where that money is going. This WILL lower costs through the free-market mechanism.

What part of this are you not understanding??

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

Ya, lowering taxes is a horrible idea

I love this anti-free market board.

Look, you ALREADY HAVE tax deductible healthcare through your company.. this is just extending it to individuals so they op-out of their company healthcare plan.. they will get LESS EXPENSIVE PLANS which means LESS money will go to insurance companies and MORE money will go to individuals to spend on ACTUAL HEALTHCARE.

Do you work for the insurance companies or something??

GODDAMNIT. You are so $#@!ing obtuse. In how many ways do I have to explain this.

END ALL SUBSIDY. END ALL DEDUCTIONS. END THE IRS. END EXCISE TAXES.

This should be the libertarian creed. This is the only Free-Market approach. Giving the subsidy and deduction to everyone will only raise costs further, and is another huge corporate subsidy. How hard is that to see?

Let's go with logic:

You say what we have now is a corporate subsidy. Therefore the answer is to allow individuals to get in on this subsidy. Now you say that is Free-Market. What....get the $#@! out of here with that bull$#@!.

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

NO IT ISN'T!!!

Please read my $#@!ing posts, this is so $#@!ing simple.

You ALREADY GET TAX DEDUCTIBLE CARE. Through your company. Now you can opt-out and get a cheaper plan and spend LESS on healthcare. Not only that, you have MORE CHOICE about where that money is going. This WILL lower costs through the free-market mechanism.

What part of this are you not understanding??

You miss the part where individuals pay more in tax than corporations (Hence deductions will even be higher if we give it to both businesses and individuals -- Increased costs. People won't care because they have to pay taxes regardless, and people will naturally say, might as well spend that on healthcare instead of pissing it away to the Government...Hence increased prices)? Of course you overlooked that. My question is: How come ending the deduction and subsidy not cross your mind?

Are you a Ron Paul drone?

[dannno]

You miss the part where individuals pay more in tax than corporations (Hence deductions will even be higher if we give it to both businesses and individuals -- Increased costs.

See it's statements like this that show you have no idea wtf you are even talking about.

Currently, companies receive PAYROLL TAX DEDUCTIONS for healthcare costs. If you enact this plan, then instead of the company receiving the deduction and using it for a healthcare plan, the individual will opt-out and get their own plan cheaper. The free market forces will begin to work, which will bring the cost of healthcare down significantly. This is the key point you seem to be missing, there are NO FREE MARKET MECHANISMS IN HEALTHCARE right now and THAT IS what Ron Paul is attempting to restore. That is why the costs are so high, Period, because of lack of competition and free market forces.

This means in the long-run, people will actually deduct less from their taxable income, but they will ALSO have more money to spend on OTHER things. I would rather spend $1,000 on healthcare, tax deductible, and then have $9,000 of non-tax-deductible income to spend on other things, rather than currently where my company spends $10,000 on my health insurance and I'm forced into being over-covered and I don't have the extra spending money.

My question is: How come ending the deduction and subsidy not cross your mind?

While this is optimal, people are already receiving huge tax subsidies on their healthcare, in fact much more than they should because there is no free market and the inflated costs are all subsidized. This is a STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION and if you think it is NOT then you aren't paying attention. If you are going to give people tax deductible insurance plans, don't just give it to certain people working for certain companies (which is the vast majority of people), give it to EVERYBODY.

Are you a Ron Paul drone?

Ok, so Ron Paul and Peter Schiff have been talking about this for well over a year and explaining the benefits over the current system, but I'm supposed to be convinced that this is a bad move by some random guy on RPF who doesn't understand the benefits of the plan.

This is a HUGE step in the right direction to curb healthcare costs. Watch the episode of "Stossel" when he interviews the owner of Whole Foods. What Ron Paul is suggesting is ALREADY being used by Whole Foods to benefit young workers. By extending this plan across the entire population, the effect will be MULTIPLIED when costs go down due to free market mechanisms.

The reason I know you are wrong is because of the Whole Foods example. This "plan" is already helping other people, and again, would be multiplied exponentially once the free market mechanisms kick in.

[dannno]

END ALL SUBSIDY. END ALL DEDUCTIONS. END THE IRS. END EXCISE TAXES.

See the problem is you can't see the forest through the trees.

This plan will create a net benefit to individuals and decrease healthcare costs drastically... but because it isn't a "perfect free market solution" you aren't able to see how this plan is A BJILLLION times better than our current system.

[dannno]

@OP

It is ridiculous to suggest that insurance companies will benefit from this when the vast majority of people will opt-out of their current healthcare coverage for MUCH cheaper individual catastrophic medical coverage. They will then spend their own money on most care and prescription drugs. They will also have the opportunity to use safe, effective, natural medicine that isn't covered by corporate plans currently.



Ron Paul has given so many speeches about how our current system is plagued by corporate healthcare, it amazes me that i can come to a Ron Paul FORUM and see so many people who don't understand wtf he was talking about this whole time.

At least this explains why this concept seems to foreign to Obama-bots I have talked to, because we have people here who can't even grasp it!!

It isn't the "ULTIMATE FREE MARKET" for healthcare, but it IS a step in the right direction. At least there will be a "market", whereas now everything is run by insurance companies because there is no competition.. Your company doesn't buy your fire insurance, car insurance or life insurance.. why health insurance? That is the BIGGEST flaw of our system.

[__27__]

AED, I gotta side with Danno here. Is it perfect? Nope, but you and I both know we aren't getting perfect out of congress. Allowing individuals to purchase their own plans with the same tax deducts their companies get would instantaneously give people more money (their companies would pay them in salary rather than in benefits), and people are no longer tied to their employer or out of insurance when they lose their job. Couple this with allowing purchase of coverage across state lines (I only have 2 providers to choose from in MN), cutting government healthcare mandates (that say a healthy 21 year old single male needs to have an insurance plan that covers OVARIAN CANCER), returning insurance to true catastrophic insurance not medical subscription packages, and tort reform and access to healthcare skyrockets while price of healthcare plummets.

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

AED, I gotta side with Danno here. Is it perfect? Nope, but you and I both know we aren't getting perfect out of congress. Allowing individuals to purchase their own plans with the same tax deducts their companies get would instantaneously give people more money (their companies would pay them in salary rather than in benefits), and people are no longer tied to their employer or out of insurance when they lose their job. Couple this with allowing purchase of coverage across state lines (I only have 2 providers to choose from in MN), cutting government healthcare mandates (that say a healthy 21 year old single male needs to have an insurance plan that covers OVARIAN CANCER), returning insurance to true catastrophic insurance not medical subscription packages, and tort reform and access to healthcare skyrockets while price of healthcare plummets.

While I will disagree with your sentiments here about the efficacy of this "program" I just want to quickly chime in on the bolded part. The AMA will restrict licensing requirements even further, keeping costs inflated. They are the barrier to every Free-Market solution. We must attack the AMA incessantly in regards to their monopoly on Doctors.

http://www.sntp.net/fda/piper_griffin.htm

He Who Pays the Piper - Creation of the Modern Medical (Drug) Establishment by G. Edward Griffin (AMA 1908)

[dannno]

While I will disagree with your sentiments here about the efficacy of this "program"

Alright, so getting people to actually pay for their healthcare instead of having the corporatist system we have now, which is not unlike a single payer system won't reduce costs... come on man, think about how the free market works.. Do you really understand economics that well?? I mean the part of economics that looks at competition, and how individuals making decisions based on cost vs. value brings down prices.. Because that is the primary goal of this program, we can see from Whole Foods example that it works.. You're already wrong out of the gate, you can't win this argument. It's like trying to say that the sky is green and not blue. Right now people go to the doctor and they don't giving a flying rat's ass what the costs are, because their corporate insurance covers everything. Don't you see what a gigantic problem that is?? Don't you see that is how prices have inflated to the levels that they have? Ya, there are other reasons like AMA and medicare, but they completely took free markets out of healthcare when they corporatized it.

I just want to quickly chime in on the bolded part. The AMA will restrict licensing requirements even further, keeping costs inflated. They are the barrier to every Free-Market solution. We must attack the AMA incessantly in regards to their monopoly on Doctors.

That depends on what will be considered a tax deductible medical expense. If I can go to a non-licensed doctor and get a tax deduction, then your theory is blown out of the water.

[Reason]

Dear god you guys have me totally confused now lol

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

Alright, so getting people to actually pay for their healthcare instead of having the corporatist system we have now, which is not unlike a single payer system won't reduce costs... come on man, think about how the free market works.. Do you really understand economics that well?? I mean the part of economics that looks at competition, and how individuals making decisions based on cost vs. value brings down prices.. Because that is the primary goal of this program, we can see from Whole Foods example that it works.. You're already wrong out of the gate, you can't win this argument. It's like trying to say that the sky is green and not blue. Right now people go to the doctor and they don't giving a flying rat's ass what the costs are, because their corporate insurance covers everything. Don't you see what a gigantic problem that is?? Don't you see that is how prices have inflated to the levels that they have? Ya, there are other reasons like AMA and medicare, but they completely took free markets out of healthcare when they corporatized it.





That depends on what will be considered a tax deductible medical expense. If I can go to a non-licensed doctor and get a tax deduction, then your theory is blown out of the water.

You don't pay for it. Your taxes do. It is another out of sight type of thing. It is third party. It will increase costs. The Healthcare Industry will raise prices to tax levels. Since there is no cap to this deduction, it will defund the Government (Which I guess is a benefit since it will bankrupt the country even faster..). Eventually, the Government will have to come in and set price and wage controls. You aren't looking at the whole picture here. Tax deductions are not out of pocket expenses. Since you are out that money anyways, people will pour all of it into healthcare as they are at least getting something "now".

I also do not understand the logic. You call corporations getting tax deductions for healthcare corporatist, and are aware its one big reason for raising prices (Due to deduction; IE subsidy), and then go on to say if we give this deduction to the individual that it won't also do the same, especially when individuals pay more than corporations in taxes. Your stance is logically inconsistent.

This has nothing in common with the Free-Market. It's like thinking Government school vouchers is Free-Market. It's a joke. Yeah, there will be competition, like there is in education, but it will be competition that continually raises prices because people won't mind paying the higher costs because they all ready pay 4,000, 6,000, 14,000, 20,000 a year in taxes. Why not write that off as healthcare deduction?

[angelatc]

If they did that they could nearly completely defund the government too. But yeah prices would most certainly skyrocket.

No, because deductions don't work that way. If you make $100,000 and were in a 20% tax bracket, your tax would be $2,000.

If you make $100,000, are in the 20% tax bracket and had $2,000 of medical bills, your tax wouldn't disappear. The medical expense comes off of your taxable income, so your tax would be $1,980.

What really needs to happen is the decoupling of insurance from employment. Then we could move towards the afore-mentioned Whole Foods type plan, which includes a health savings account.

[fisharmor]

Does anyone else have an HSA?
I got one last June and I LOVE IT.
Is it ideal? Of course not. I still have insurance through my employer, and we have a special account for the health savings money, and it still has to go to the insurance company and get denied before the provider will bill us, and we then cut a check from the HSA.

Is it bull$#@!? Yes, a thousand times yes. But I'm with Danno: it's a microscopic amount of bull$#@! compared to the PPO we were on before (which was itself microscopic compared to the HMO before that).

With the HSA, there's no fight over what should be covered. They deny it, we get the bill, and we pay it. It's as close as it gets to paying with our own money.

On the other hand, there's a local lab that still thinks we owe them $1000 that our PPO didn't cover. They PPO should have covered it, and I ain't paying it, because the system conspired to get us to pony up when we shouldn't. Now that $1000 due is getting swallowed up by the system in the form of higher costs. That also says nothing for the two times the lab billed the PPO, the two times the PPO investigated and denied them, the phone calls, the forwarding to collections, the time the collections companies are spending reading my dispute letters, and, should it happen to get reported, the time the credit bureaus are going to have to spend purging my records.

This happened for like a dozen labs. And with an HSA, that amount of work gets cut down to about 2% of what they went through on the PPO - and the provider actually gets paid!

Now I'm evangelizing this to the rest of the fools in the office who took the PPO option. And you know what... if everybody had access to HSAs, and even COMPETING HSAs, yes, that would bring costs down significantly - way farther down than the tax subsidy would bring them up!

Sure, I want to get rid of the corporatism altogether - and I want to get rid of the taxes, too. But Schiff's idea is actually politically viable, and it would work. Just not as well. But I'll take it.

[jmdrake]

Please watch:

YouTube - John Stossel - Sick in America - Part 5 (of 6)

[kahless]

I paid out about 10k last year in health care. If I got that money off the federal rape of my income I would have put it back into the economy. This therefore would not only help me but would boost consumer spending.

I cannot see why anyone would be against not allowing you to get some of your money back from the federal govenment. The progressives made this country what it is over time through incrementalism. Just as we are not going to transform this nation and preferably abolish the IRS overnight. Until that happens incrementally taking our money back through policies such as this is a good start.

[dannno]

I also do not understand the logic. You call corporations getting tax deductions for healthcare corporatist, and are aware its one big reason for raising prices (Due to deduction; IE subsidy), and then go on to say if we give this deduction to the individual that it won't also do the same, especially when individuals pay more than corporations in taxes. Your stance is logically inconsistent.

But the main problem with our current system is that there is no competition, not that there is a tax deduction for health care in general, the problem comes with specifying the tax deduction for corporations. The current tax deduction drives people onto corporate plans.

Tax deductions for necessary expenses (or in the case of a consumption tax - NOT taxing necessities like food and medicine) are not the worst thing in the world, though not completely free market....HOWEVER....what you have to consider is that this is not really ADDING more tax deductions, it is simply SHIFTING that tax deduction from a corporation to the individual so that the individual can decide how to use that tax deduction... that decision will drive competition, and there is no "adding" tax deductions because people already have it.. you are also not considering that most people will buy LESS insurance and pay MORE out of pocket, so prices will come down drastically..for many reasons..

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

I paid out about 10k last year in health care. If I got that money off the federal rape of my income I would have put it back into the economy. This therefore would not only help me but would boost consumer spending.

I cannot see why anyone would be against not allowing you to get some of your money back from the federal govenment. The progressives made this country what it is over time through incrementalism. Just as we are not going to transform this nation and preferably abolish the IRS overnight. Until that happens incrementally taking our money back through policies such as this is a good start.

Why not? If we focused on that objective and goal, we could do it. Instead we get side tracked with less than "pure" "optimal" "politically viable" substitutes which trash the original goal. You bastardize the philosophy. If we woke people up we could abolish it. If we didn't squabble on the best ways to keep the IRS, and how to "fix" the "problems" by "tinkering", we could do it. The Colonists didn't use incrementalism. Indeed, if our goal is a free-society, then we can only accept the solution for the problem, not a solution that creates another problem and deflects from our chief aim.

Sure, it may not happen overnight, but it would damn sure happen in 10, or 20 years. If we go the incrementalism route, and it just so happens to work better than what we have now, people will be complacent. I think Rothbard put it best. (I'll have to find the article). Besides, if our message isn't Radical, the layman will not distinguish us from the regular GOPer (Read: Statist).