“Fascinating ‘Outside-of-the-Box’ Thinking on Health Insurance Reform”

Posted by Michael F. Cannon

At Reason Online, Ronald Bailey reviews John Cochrane‘s recent Cato Policy Analysis, “Health-Status Insurance: How Markets Can Provide Health Security.”

Writing in advance of last week’s health care summit held by President Obama, Bailey explains:

Summit attendees will break into various working groups that are supposed to engage in “outside-of-the-box” thinking. As it happens, they now have some fascinating “outside-of-the-box” thinking on health insurance reform to draw on. Earlier this month, University of Chicago economist John Cochrane published an intriguing policy analysis for the libertarian Cato Institute that looked at how “health-status insurance” can provide health security for Americans. Cochrane claims that with health-status insurance, free markets can solve the vexing problem of how to insure people with pre-existing medical conditions and “provide life-long, portable health security, while enhancing consumer choice and competition.”…

Creating and selling separate health-status insurance policies would mean that medical insurance companies would no longer have an incentive to offload sick people. Instead, because those with pre-existing conditions would have the funds to pay higher premiums, insurers would compete for their business. “Constant competition for every consumer will have the same dramatic effects on cost, quality, and innovation in health care as it does in every other industry,” argues Cochrane.

Health-status insurance also helps delink medical insurance from employment because…a worker diagnosed with diabetes…can switch jobs without worrying about whether or not he can obtain medical insurance…

While Cochrane acknowledges that his proposal is not a comprehensive health care reform program, adopting it would go a long way toward satisfying President Obama’s eight health care reform principles, especially affordability, aiming toward universality, portability, and choice, and being fiscally sustainable. “Health-status insurance can simultaneously give us complete and portable long-term insurance, great individual choice, and cost-containment beyond the dreams of any health policy planner,” concludes Cochrane. Asked if he has been invited to the president’s health care reform summit this week, Cochrane said no, but quickly added, “If I got the phone call, I would definitely be there.” Mr. President, there’s still time for your summiteers to hear about this outside-of-the-box thinking.