Right now besides single payer (which is the answer but...), the Democrats don’t seem to have a simple plan to combat the Republicans on health insurance.
I have a simple idea that seems like it would solve a lot of issues, but I haven’t seen anyone talking about it. I was hoping someone with more understanding of the healthcare market could help me with this idea. I am calling it:
The Freedom and Equality in Healthcare Act
1. All residents in a State should have access to the same healthcare insurance regardless of their employment status.
2. All insurance companies that wish to do business in a State are required to sell the same insurance plans to all residents at the same regional price regardless of which buying group the residence is a member.
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Currently, the same insurance company can offer multiple plans/pricing/doctors for each purchasing pool. What this law does is make the pool all residents of a State.
It would solve the issue of the individual marketplace exchanges only having one option because the pool wouldn't be limited to those in the marketplace but rather the entire population of the State. It would make it easier to leave a job or change jobs since all employers could get the same plans for the same prices. It should drive the overall cost down since the pools would be larger and the administrative cost would be lower since the Insurance companies would only have to manage one set of plans (silver, gold...).
The only downside is that there might be a small increase in the cost of insurance for large corporate plans am I missing something?