Health insurance for everybody? Not so easy.

I just read this (probably biased, but still…) highly pessimistic report on the State of Massachussetts’ bold experiment with universal citizen health care. I have long been torn by this issue. I want everyone to have health care, and it seems like a friggin’ crime that they don’t. But I realize that it’s friggin’ expensive, and that the state is not usually a better manager of market forces than markets are (though note our recent financial meltdown for the kinds of delicious things markets are capable of).

Massachussetts’ program was apparently to give individuals financial help in buying health insurance from private companies (HMOs or something like them), but… only allow them to buy from certain corporations on a list? The creation of this list is corruption-fodder a-go-go. And people get fines if they don’t get health insurance with their government subsidy. Or something like that.

Maybe I’m naive (probably), but it seems, if you’re a universal-health-care kinda person, there would be an easier and more humane way to skin this cat. Let me know if any of this stinks to you (it seems too simple):

1. Allocate the bazillions of dollars (in MA’s case, they allocated too few… oops… it’s aspensive, folks!). This assumes you can convince taxpayers to not lynch you for doing this.
2. Put everyone’s share in a private bank account in their name, every year. It’s in the citizen’s name, so the government can’t touch dis, as they are wont to do.
3. Make it a special kind of bank account that can only be used to pay monies for health insurance premiums.
4. Let the citizens decide where to spend it. If they don’t spend it, then the money goes back into the program at the end of the year, and next year’s share replaces it. No saving up. And if they croak because they refused to get insurance, fine. One less citizen (wait… perhaps minors should have some nanny clause where if their guardians don’t choose a plan for them in a timely fashion, the state takes over and chooses; I am not a fan of letting children suffer for their parents’ stupidity or misguided ideals).
5. With the massive leverage gained by increasing health insurance companies’ bottom lines (not to mention banks’), you can negotiate rules like no turning people away (not even for preexisting conditions), no cutting policyholders off for simultaneous attacks of seven types of cancer, etc.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be messy; it would be. But it seems a little simpler than MA’s system, no? That said, I’m not certain I want to burden the government with this requirement… but Canada doesn’t seem so bad.