Approximately 47 million Americans are uninsured.
The average individual health insurance premium is between $300-$400 per month, or $3600 – $4800 per year.
(Multiplying) Today it would cost $188-$225 billion to provide health insurance to all of the uninsured.
This cost is currently rising between 8-10% per year.
Generally tax revenue growth is proportional to GDP growth.
How can our government finance an additional $200 billion per year growing at 8+% per year when historically GDP growth has been well below 8+%.
Can they keep raising taxes?
Most reasonable people would say no, we cannot raise tax rates year after year (or perhaps even now for that matter).
To accomplish universal coverage we need to discover enough healthcare initiatives that together result in reducing healthcare inflation to the level of inflation of the economy in general (about 0-4% over the last 10 years or so).
If we can achieve this goal, then we can realistically and responsibly begin to create proposals for getting everyone insured.
The two biggest areas of potential cost savings are: (1) waste and redundancy (estimated at a total cost of $700 billion/year) and (2) the expansion of the prevalence and cost of chronic illness (about 70% of the $2.4 trillion healthcare economy, or $1.7 trillion per year).
Initial approaches to healthcare reform should focus on measuring these costs and implementing initiatives to reduce them over time. Many of the technologies and proven approaches to tackling these issues are currently available, but are going largely ignored by lawmakers as they craft reform. Many more are in development and will appear over the next 5-10 years. Many of them cross my desk as potential investment opportunities everyday.
Look for insights on modern and novel approaches to improving healthcare quality and reducing costs as this blog develops.
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