You remember "credit-default swaps," of course--the sleazy unregulated paper transaction insurance that was part of every bundle of mortgage-backed securities traded on the Exchange until the real estate market tanked, whereupon the credit-default swaps turned out to be what they were all along, which was insurance, only none of the insurance was any good because it was unregulated and had no real money in back of it, whereupon the economy imploded and many died.
Why not apply these same free-market principles to health care?
A credit-default swap is a contract that guarantees to substitute, automatically, good commercial paper for bad. If that sounds suspiciously like something called "insurance," STFU. Insurance is regulated! If you want to be an insurance company you have to prove to a bunch of government hacks that you can pay losses! With CDS you don't. You can just say you'll pay and no gummint bastard has a thing to say.
Now we could work this with healthcare, too. AIG, Aetna, and BCBS were stupid enough to call themselves insurance companies. Anybody that stupid deserves to fail!
What I propose is of the essence of the free market. I don't insure people against illness. I simply promise that if they get sick and can't pay their bill (which is known as a "default") I will swap their default for a credit of some sort--probably money. If this sounds like something called "insurance," STFU. Insurance is regulated! If you want to be an insurance company you have to prove to a bunch of government hacks that you can pay losses! With CDS you don't. You can just say you'll pay and no gummint bastard has a thing to say.
Do you see how liberating this is? It relieves me of all of that stupid government red tape!
It also relieves me of having to have enough money on hand to pay losses in case there is the healthcare equivalent of a real estate market meltdown, such as, oh, the Swine Flu.
And there is so much wealth to be created! Think of it. There will be whole brokerage houses trading in nothing but my health CDS! There will be an independent market for health CDS--bales and bales of them, all traded electronically of course and generating billions and billions of dollars and jobs and Republicans.
Really, my fellow Kossacks. Who needs this leftist Commie Democrat crap any more?
Join me, and together we will rule the Galaxy.