Health Care is the new Entitlement

How we should do it

Like it or not Health Care is the new entitlement like education. It’s probably a good thing that everyone get’s health care in the US at least for Citizens and legal aliens. But before we create this new entitlement, I hope we learn from the current problems in the education system which is badly broken. Vouchers are needed so that consumers can choose the health care plan that makes sense for them. In addition to vouchers we should be able to pay additional money out of pocket to purchase better health care if we want to. We cannot in the process create another “teacher union” that runs health care. That union is what is killing our public education system in the first place. We also should not penalize the wealthy like we do in the case of private schools. Vouchers are for everyone. If the wealthy want more and better they should pay for it but they should pay the difference not the whole thing.

The other thing we need to do is fully fund nursing educational programs. If anyone in this country makes less than a nurse we should help that person become a nurse if they can’t afford to do it on their own. Flooding the market with nurses will drive cost down, increase specialization (improving care), and increase the number of doctors in the long run because there is an educational path from nurse to MD (LPN, RN, Nurse Practitioner, MD.) BTW I would rather be seen by a nurse prac then an MD any day of the week.

The first things Vouchers should pay for are those things that have proven economic impact. I.e. vaccinations reduce disease and are cheaper then treating the disease therefore we should encourage vaccination by paying for it nationally. Over time we can add other services as they make economic sense to do so. Yes this is cold hearted but there are too many things that we legitimately need to spend money on at the national level to pay for them all. So we need to think with our brains and not with our hearts. We need to spend money where we will get a return on our investment.