Universal Catastrophic Health Insurance

· January 20, 2019

Just listened to a very interesting EconTalk episode with Ed Dolan. He outlines a healthcare approach that seems, first blush, an interesting option for the US. 

The rough idea is that the government subsidises or provides insurance with deductables based as a (highish) percentage of income. That prevents people from going bankrupt due to healthcare costs, and can be set to 0 for low income individuals. 

Most people would have some significant deductable and so would largely be out of pocket for routine healthcare. If competition could be appropriately allowed (where in many cases it is not), you can envieage Jiffy lube style physical centers, or low cost treatment services that covered manageable but ongoing conditions like diabetes or thryhoid disorders. 

This would help with portability, largely removing job lock, and probably improve the state of healthcare provision which is horribly opaque in both the systems I have used (UK and US).

There seems to be enough in there for both left and right leaning folks, and the chance to help a lot of people. Dolan has a FAQ on his site with a number of questions answered for those looking to read more.