Replace Medicare with HSAs

(9629):

Medicare for the elderly is growing at an alarming rate. People with medical conditions have absolutely no incentive to shop around and reduce health care expenses. Comparison-shopping is necessary to drive costs down.

We can change incentives by creating Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) for the elderly. This is just like a savings account that earns interest and people can use it for their health care needs. The only insurance people will have is catastrophic insurance with a high deductible from a private insurer.

The size of HSAs will be large enough to cover 100% of the lifetime health needs for about 95% of the people. For those few who run though their money, they should have savings, family, friends, or some backup.

When a person dies, the money in the HSA goes to the charity of choice or the HSAs of their children. So every dollar wasted is a dollar less to their children. This is incentive to be frugal.

The HSAs will be a huge upfront cost but a great long-term investment.