Thursday, November 04, 2010

Not A Compelling Business Model

I present the Medical Savings and Loan as a business model. The primary reason for this is that I want people to see how they would interact with the system.

The system, however, is not as compelling a business model as insurance.

A group of 10,000 people paying $10,000 a year in health premiums for ten years would pipe a billion dollars through the system.

Insurance has people paying this money into a group pool that the insurance company controls. This is a compelling business model as it gives people controlling the insurance pool enormous power.

The Medical Savings and Loan has people putting their money into investments that they control.

Suddenly, this enormous wealth that the insurance company gets to control is controlled by the policy holders. The business owners of the Medical Savings and Loan reduces the rich financiers to middle class stooges.

Yes, the people doing business with the Medical Savings and Loan are better off. The people running the shop are no longer enormously rich and powerful.

Investors, Wall Street Bankers, and power brokers and the country club all dispise the idea.

My decision to present the Medical Savings and Loan as a business has the problem that progressives seeking government ownership of healthcare can frame the program as some sort of evil capitalist contraption.

The fact that the system can be attacked from left and right might be a sign that the system is on the right track.

Afterall, the long term determination of the quality of a business model is not the amount of wealth it consolidates in the hands of the few, but how well the business model serves the society as a whole.

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