New at Reason

January 12, 2007

What's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger thinking with his new health care reform proposal? Ronald Bailey aims to find out.

Comments

|1.12.07 @ 11:05AM|#

Ron
You bring up some good points here. And it makes Arnold's plan more palatable than my initial reaction was to mandatory coverage.

Yes it does amount to a breathing tax. Every one who breathes must have health care coverage.

But if done in the manner of a catostrophic coverage policy (free of mandates) tied to a health savings account, essentially a consumer directed healthcare account, it is far more palatable than any other scheme I have heard of here or abroad.
This would be two steps in the right direction. One as you pointed out would be to turn health insurance back into an insurance product not as currently seen as free care, and it would remove health insurance from the employment equation.
The second aspect is that the HSA removes the third party from most health decisions and puts the patient back in control of their healthcare. A big bonus.
Thanks for summarizing the plan I would not have had the stomach to read about it otherwise.
Art

Robert|1.12.07 @ 11:05AM|#

I'm more interested in how the governator is thinking. I'm interested in the mechanisms by which reforms in one direction get turned around to another. I'm still a bit stunned by the turnaround of Fidesz.

|1.12.07 @ 12:39PM|#

Has anyone else heard that Ahnold's plan will also cover illegal immigrants?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20070110/cm_rcp/schwarzeneggers_health_care_so

But excuse my act of political indiscretion. Around here the policy is to not acknowledge that illegal immigrants are anything but an unqualified good.

Larry A|1.12.07 @ 5:35PM|#

Now if we could just get employers out of the retirement funds arena as well...

uncle sam|1.13.07 @ 6:56PM|#

Arnold seems to have political aspirations.

Robert|1.15.07 @ 7:03PM|#

Arnold does have one of the requirements: bread.