America's New Health Care System

This is an essay that i had to write for my economics class; we had to design a new healthcare system for America:

After several weeks of extensive researching other countries and evaluating our own country's strengths and weakness in our healthcare system, I have come to the conclusion that we need to change our system to one like Switzerland, Taiwan, or Great Britain. Our new system will be a single payer plan, run like Medicare, but covering our whole country rather than just those over 65 years of age.

With this program, everyone would have health coverage and no one is denied coverage based off of their medical history or financial status. Under this plan, a patient would be able to go see any doctor or specialist they want without having to see a primary physician beforehand. If the patient thinks that he or she might have knee problems, he or she wouldn't have to go see their primary physician first; they could just schedule an appointment with their local knee specialist. Health care coverage would include everything necessary for medical care, mental health care, long-term illness, dental health services, and prescription drugs. Patients wouldn't have to pay anything, except for a premium that would be determined after negotiations amongst a national board that could come to a price regarding the premium. But, people wouldn't have to pay a copayment when visiting the doctors. All doctor visits and expenses will be paid for by the government, which would increase taxes some to compensate for the fact that people wouldn't be directly paying for their appointments. Doctors and physicians would be paid through a set salary that would be agreed on during a set meeting. But, doctors can also make bonuses if they're patients are returning to them healthier and if they are finding illnesses ahead of time or can prevent an illness from occurring. This bonus would be determined at the same meeting for the set salary, but would incentivize the doctors to want to take more time with their patients and

really pay attention to them so that they can notice if they are doing better or notice if they have the early symptoms of a disease.

A new program that I think could be very beneficial is the idea of ID cards that holds a person's health care information and records on it. Every time a patient would go to the doctors, this card would be swiped and the doctors could have all of their information show up. Then, when the appointment is over, the receptionist would swipe the card to charge them for their appointment and that would directly go to government for them to pay. To make sure that this card can't be stolen, and as a safety precaution, the receptionist or doctor would ask the patient to say their social security number to make sure that it matches the number on the card. In order to make sure that people don't overuse their cards, government officials can monitor citizens' activity and if a person starts to use their card very frequently, a notification can be sent to an official so that they can investigate the situation. If need be, the official can limit how many times a person uses their card to make sure they aren't taking advantage of the health care system.

These ID cards can also be used for a point system to help encourage healthier habits. For example, every time a patient comes to their physician, they are examined, and are diagnosed as healthy, or healthier than their last visit, they can receive credit points. These points can accumulate and, once they hit a