Health Care Corruption

The 2006 Global Corrumption report will have a focus on corruption in health care.

Corruption in healthcare is one of the major reasons why we should favor free market reforms of health care such as Medical Savings Accounts. A MSA takes the money that would be going into your insurance policy into a bank account. When you visit a doctor, you spend the money from your account in a 1-1 transaction between the doctor and clinic. A straight on 1-1 transaction is the best way to assure that both sides of a transaction are playing fair.

The modern insurance model uses a bizarre form of many-1 transactions. You are in a pool of many that negotiatiates with the healthcare industry. As this system evolves, economic power moves out of the hands of the patients and doctors and into the hands of the power brokers that control the big pools of resources.

As the power brokers gain more and more power, they tend to become more and more corrupt and we end with the with present day situation where, despite a large number of technological advances in delivering care, basic health care is no longer affordable for large numbers of Americans.

If MSAs were to become the norm and health care transactions were once again on 1-1 terms between doctors and patients, we would see a dramatic reversal in the both the corruption of health care and a major drop in the cost of basic health care services.