That's where the health savings accounts (HSA) and subsidization comes in. We want people to be able to afford healthcare but not abuse it. So what should we do?
First, require each person to set aside part of their income to a HSA.
Second, top up the values of those HSA's through government transfers for the poor and lower income.
Third, mandate that HSA's can only be used for real healthcare (and not alternative medicine). This way, individuals can afford healthcare but will still take responsibility to not deplete their accounts unnecessarily.
Fourth, (and in response to the NhanN's question) subsidize healthcare providers because healthcare tends to be underconsumed. Why is healthcare underconsumed? When we think about the importance of our own health, we only think of ourselves or our families. But we are valuable to our employer, to our friends. To correct for these positive externalities, some subsidization is essential to bring down those costs.
You are right in that my post didn't address the issues of childcare, let alone genetic diseases, long term conditions etc. where the price mechanism doesn't really make sense or fails. Any healthcare policy will have nuances that I cannot capture in a comment. But for the majority of healthcare consumption, we should really be trying to be as efficient as we can be precisely because of how costly it can be. Throwing away the price mechanism just because it fails for the edge cases is not ideal.
First, require each person to set aside part of their income to a HSA.
Second, top up the values of those HSA's through government transfers for the poor and lower income.
Third, mandate that HSA's can only be used for real healthcare (and not alternative medicine). This way, individuals can afford healthcare but will still take responsibility to not deplete their accounts unnecessarily.
Fourth, (and in response to the NhanN's question) subsidize healthcare providers because healthcare tends to be underconsumed. Why is healthcare underconsumed? When we think about the importance of our own health, we only think of ourselves or our families. But we are valuable to our employer, to our friends. To correct for these positive externalities, some subsidization is essential to bring down those costs.
You are right in that my post didn't address the issues of childcare, let alone genetic diseases, long term conditions etc. where the price mechanism doesn't really make sense or fails. Any healthcare policy will have nuances that I cannot capture in a comment. But for the majority of healthcare consumption, we should really be trying to be as efficient as we can be precisely because of how costly it can be. Throwing away the price mechanism just because it fails for the edge cases is not ideal.