Competitive Health Care

As college students, many of us take our health care for granted. If we get sick we may just go to the Student Health Center, or to our family physician, and our parents insurance takes care of all but $30 or $40 worth. Since we’re only paying $40 we do not care how much the physicians visit is, or how much it may be for a x-ray or MRI. We just go anywhere we want to go. But, what if we were consumers of our Health Care? What if we did care how much it cost? If you needed an MRI and there were two physicians beside each other, one charging $1000 for the MRI and the other charging $800, which one would you go to? Well under traditional old health insurance plan, many people would not care. They are only paying $40 either way. They may never even know how much it costs. But, if they were paying for it out of pocket, they then would become price conscience consumers of their health care. The U.S. economy is based on competition for consumers. Health care does not have that competition because many people do not care how much it cost.

In the news recently there has been much discussion about America’s health care system and about the growing number of physicians quitting the profession or moving state’s because of the high cost of malpractice insurance. Cost in the health care industry continues to rise because of a lack of competition, and the lack of consumers shopping around. One idea the White House has came up with is Health Savings Accounts. A health savings account is a tax-sheltered savings account similar to the IRA, but earmarked for medical expenses. Deposits are 100% tax-deductible for the self-employed and can be easily withdrawn by check or debit card to pay for medical bills. Larger medical expenses are covered by a low-cost, high deductible health insurance policy. HAS earns interest and what is not used from year to year stays in the account. By having people use these accounts for their first medical expense, it will cause consumers to shop around for their medical service, and will increase competition in the health care industry. By this increase in competition, consumers may see health care cost fall, while services continue to improve. This is by no means a save all for Health Care. Do you think competition is good for the Health Care Industry, or do you believe the traditional way of co-pays and high insurance costs is the best? If most of our economy is based on competition, and free market, why should our health care be any different?