This is another post inspired by a reader question. Awhile back I wrote an article about how I proposed to implement medicare for all based on state medicaid systems. And someone posed the question, what if we had an all cash healthcare system? In this scenario, we would get rid of the insurance companies and healthcare providers would have to compete in the open market. To some degree, in things not often covered by insurance (chiropractic, vision, dental) this is already the case. It serves as an example of what that might look like. So let’s travel down this road and think about what an all-cash system might look like.
You get care, you pay
The first, and most obvious idea here is that people would pay for the care that they can afford. As I said already, this is often the case in vision and dental care. Many people don’t have vision and dental coverage and so providers of those services keep prices reasonable and often offer payment plans for larger procedures. There is a whole credit system (you’ve heard of care credit?) to manage this kind of thing.
I have eye issues and it is $115 for my eye exam and my contacts are around $200. That’s at least money I can put together. However, this would be a major change for general clinicians. One of the reasons the cost of healthcare has gotten so…
