Instead of surrendering the argument on health care, I say we should come up with a health care reform that leans more toward libertarian principles.
In my view, free-market health care means health insurance policies designed by insurance companies to meet the needs of consumers, rather than designed by regulators. Thus, the core of any libertarian health care reform has to be be deregulation of health insurance—eliminating mandates and any restrictions on health insurance companies’ methods of managing risk. Such reform would allow risk-based pricing, for example.
Red Staters who are intrigued by such ideas but who nonetheless believe some sort of government intervention is necessary may want to consider Red State offering of long-term catastrophic re-insurance. If a health insurance company issues a policy to an individual (this would not apply to employer-based health insurance, which is over-subsidized as it is), the Red State would pay health insurance expenses that exceed a five-year deductible. The deductible would be based on the person’s family adjusted gross income, divided by the number of people in the family. Divide that number by two, and make that the five-year deductible.