Solving the Healthcare Social Marketplace Puzzle

There is a relatively simple and 'American solution' to our healthcare social marketplace woes rather than pushing another gubermint burrocratic take over of the healthcare social marketplace down our throats -- just let providers deduct the unreimbursed cost of charity care from their income.

Overnight there would be a stampede of clinics in all health professions stepping up with sliding scale fee structures to provide top notch charity care. Additionally, there would be a natural check and balance to this care -- to make it work, one would have to real income from paying patients to deduct from.

Clinics could develop these plans according to the needs and situations of their own communities, rather than being forced to accept some top down edicts from some DC bureaucrats about how you are supposed to do things.

Having control of their costs and care, Clinics could easily implement stable broad reaching preventive programs for those of limited means.

The unspoken reality of much gubermint Medicaid and Medicare care is it frequently pays doctors and clinics 30 percent or less of their regular fees -- which is about the same as if the care were tax deductible, only with lots of ever changing red tape that reduce the quality of care provided. Microsoft might donate $1M in software to schools, it's tax deductible; a grocery store might donate $1k of food to a food bank, it's tax deductible; but a doctor can't donate their time to save a life, it's not tax deductible.

Sure, one might find out that a lot of health care providers would be paying little income taxes -- but then there would also be a huge reduction, if not elimination, in Medicare and Medicaid expenses.

This care would all be subject to marketplace rules -- if someone can do it better for less, that's where the market may go. Currently, with so much paid for by third parties and gubermint, there's little market incentives to find the most cost effective care options.

In summary, providers, NOT politicians, provide health care. This shouldn't be overlooked. Way too many people have developed an unhealthy faith in politicians, burrocrats and gubermint to solve their woes. In the case of health care, it's doctors, nurses and providers of all sorts that choose to provide whatever care is given, even in the face of barely being paid for their time or overhead. If folks start to appreciate this part of the healthcare link, they may start showing up for appointments, following provider instructions, and improving their own health by developing a healthy long term relationship with their providers -- instead of the entitled demand "Make me healthy now for free so I can get back to my couch, laptop, Xbox and TV remote with soda and chips..."

Virtually all of the so called health care woes people face can be directly tied to misdirected politics of one sort or another -- some well meaning, some naive, typically with a lot of 'unintended consequences', and virtually all mostly to buy votes and power rather than to provide quality affordable health care. Government is the problem, not solution...

Get government out of the way by a few minor changes in the tax code and let the marketplace solve the health care problem.