I think a great many of us were stunned to find Justice Roberts being the key person in upholding the Affordable Care Act last week. Regardless of the wording in his opinion, whether it’s a Commerce Clause thing, a tax or even a dessert topping, the main thing is the ACA survived a direct frontal assault from the dark side. Praise be for that!
One thing sticks, however. We know the law as it stands needs improvement. Even once all measures of the Act become law in 2014, a vast swath of Americans will still be left vulnerable to the caprices of private healthcare insurance and many will still not be fully protected.
With that in mind, I remembered one of the provisions originally offered when the ACA was wending its way through committees a few years ago. It was spoken of quietly and the press seemed to sleep right through it.
So what I have to say isn’t original, but exhumed from fading memories of what seemed a wonderful idea. I choose to expound and modify that idea below.
A lot of municipalities and counties have, (or used to have) public clinics. They’re state/local government run and do things such as immunizations and blood tests if you want to get married. I believe that ramping up the number of these clinics and making them more accessible to both urban dwellers but rural folks as well, and could be a real boon in making sure everyone gets care without resorting to emergency rooms or certain bankruptcy.
The scope of what these enlarged clinics do would need to be enhanced to provide broader testing, disease treatment, dental diagnoses and treatment and even injury care. It would require doctors, nurses and other health professionals on government payroll and drugs dispensed on site.
No one would be turned away and there wouldn’t be any needs based testing and only a nominal fee might be charged for services. Treatment drugs could be acquired through the VA’s purchasing program and employing staffs could be handled through the VA’s HR dep’t.
Costs could be borne through a Federal program, at no cost to the states, counties or municipalities. To fund the program we could turn to user fees enacted on stock market trades, which would have a positive effect on currency differential trades and speculation for speculations sake. Smarter folks than me could figure out what that fee might be, but I bet a penny per trade would fund everything mentioned above, while solving a very large problem in America.