Responsible healthcare

HSAs (Health Savings Accounts) are an extremely good idea, for they place responsibility for an individual's health in that individual's hand.

The money that is placed in the HSA stays there and can only be used for the legitimate medical purpose.  It can accumulate over a lifetime, and you should be able to transfer your entire account at the time of death.

It would teach the owners to shop for healthcare efficiently rather than simply assuming that some third party is going to take care of the expenses.

It will force the providers of healthcare to enter the free market arena and provide competitive pricing. This will of course drive down the cost of healthcare and will greatly reduce the amount of traffic in emergency rooms , which are very expensive. The beneficiaries will be local clinics and local practitioners who are much better equipped to provide ongoing and preventive healthcare.

For the indigent and disabled who are already on government dole, the same money that is used to support their healthcare needs now can be divided and shifted to their HSA.  It will be necessary to devise incentives for those who are not indigent to contribute to their own HSA.  

It will also be necessary to provide incentives for employers to contribute to the HSA of their employees.  These are the basic tenants of an effective HSA system. The details should be worked out in a bipartisan manner so that there is total buy-in by everyone.  

This will also necessitate finding other mechanisms to address catastrophic healthcare, which can also be addressed in a logical fashion without expanding the tax burden or other bureaucratic entities.

---