Solving the Health Care Crisis Requires No Change of Law

Another pundit I love reading is Karl Denninger. I've mentioned him before I think. He's a little bit older than me, and is a long time expert in the business of network computing. 

But the subject I read him for his amazing clarity on the subject of the health care crisis in America. He long harped on the idea that most people completely misunderstand what is going on, and are offering horrible solutions. Above all, he's a numbers guy, i.e., mathematics doesn't lie. He's convinced that the health care industry, in particular the health insurance industry, is deeply corrupt, and, with the cooperation of both parties in the federal government, is royally "screwing" the rest of everyone else in violation of the law, and should be treated as criminals.

Here's a great recent starter regarding his opinions, which have coalesced over time to the idea that unless Donald Trump takes the steps he suggests, the health care crisis will overwhelm his presidency (as it would anyone who was president right now).

President Trump, you simply have to come to grips with where the problem lies in health care. It's not access to insurance...
Health insurance accessibility is, at its core, all about the price of the underlying service.  And let's cut the crap, eh -- that price has no market force or discovery mechanism available to the common man today, and hasn't for 30+ years.  That is why -- and is in fact the only reason why -- health care is so damned expensive and health "insurance" is what people are "falling back on."

In his latest series of articles, he explains why the current health are insurance law is disastrous for businesses and is a great incentive to hiring anyone

..."mandatory" health insurance imposed a large contingent cost on employers that didn't appear to be there right up until someone who has a pre-existing condition shows up and wants to be hired.  Remember that as soon as that happens it screws everyone who already works there and what's worse the employer is forced to conspire with the applicant since (1) he can't ask about said condition and (2) if he figures it out he can't discriminate either or he will get sued and lose. 

He thinks that the POTUS has the power, through the Attorney General, to simply force existing anti-trust law to applied in the health care industry (instead of blatantly disregarded), then health care costs would drop like a stone across the board, so that health insurance would hardly be necessary for most medical expenses (the way it used to be), and would be much cheaper for the categories of expenses (catastrophic, etc.) for which it would remain necessary.

Of course Denninger realizes this would trash an entire sector of the economy.

I get it that if you take this on using existing law, which certainly appears fully adequate to put a stop to all of this, and demand (1) price lists be posted publicly for everything, (2) everyone pays the same price for the same good or service no matter whether they have insurance or not, who it's through or how they're paying, (3) that consent on an individual and priced basis is required for anyone able to give it; if you're unable due to unconsciousness or similar "drive by" and similar types of charges are deemed felonious and (4) the United States demands and enforces "most favored nation" for pricing of drugs and devices with any firm that refuses loses all its US patent protections and US licensing that we'd have a deep and immediate recession since roughly 15% of GDP would disappear in a puff of smoke in an afternoon. All those facilities built with debt -- which is most of them, as I'm sure you know -- would be bankrupted immediately.

But that would mean health care would be much cheaper for everyone across the board.

But that's good, not bad.  Someone would buy that bankrupt hospital the next day for 5% or 10% of what it cost to build, and the lights would remain on.  Costs would plunge like a stone thrown off one of your high-rise buildings; in fact, they'd fall by up to 90%.  Telling "practitioners" that Jeff Sessions will be as rough on them as you want him to be with dope dealers with maximum charges for peddling known lies when it comes to disorders such as Type II diabetes -- that one should "chase" their fast carbs with drugs instead of not eating the damn things in the first place would go a long way toward resolving not only the cost issues in health care but the underlying diseases themselves.