The best example is the“new standard” for healthcare insurance. The current administration's effort to save the American people from the consequences of having health insurance, is about to destroy the industry. The supreme intellects who write policy and legislation have decided that healthcare insurers must spend between 80 to 85% of the premiums on claims.
Surprisingly the media has no natural curiosity as to what this could do. The biggest problem in insurance today is the disconnect between the payment, the treatment and the care given. Somehow the consumer's voice is never taken into account. The doctor will get paid a predetermined amount for service rendered, the insurance company will pay, and the consumer “gets well”. The problem here is not the amount of money spent, the problem is the lack of input the consumer has on their treatment.
So, on a fine white charger, in storms the government to solve the problem. As opposed to giving the consumer a voice, the government has mandated a payment schedule. In classic bureaucratic behavior, they assume more money is the answer. To ensure the "more money" is spent correctly, they devise a gauntlet of forms, bureaus, ombudsmen and other regulators to ensure no nickel is wasted. This results in the cost of the nickel being saved, to be about $15 per nickel.
In trying to find points of agreement, assume the 15 to 20% rule was a good thing, just applied inappropriately. What if one fifth of each budget, for every department of the government, was all that could be allotted to administration and supervision?
Suppose school districts could only have 15 to 20% of the educationalbudget spent on people who did not have a minimum of six hours a day teaching students. This is the first thing you would hear, over the screams, "the administrators and peripheral programs are too important to be cut". Followed by the usual caterwauling associated with bureaucratic faux concern.
Imagine the department of transportation having to spend 80 to 85% of their budget specifically on fixing roads used by cars and trucks. The amount of money siphoned into mass transportation schemes would no longer be there. The transportation monopoly would crumble. with out the “mass transit service”, perhaps individuals using nothing more than vans could provide shuttles from Starbucks to the workplace.
Say the 15 to 20% rule were applied to the workforce, that each citizen or registered alien got to keep between 85 to 80% of their pay. If the overhead of government were reduced to less than a fifth of all income generated by our nation, would the people have more money to consume our way out of any financial problems? With the tax obligation of most Americans cut in half, the greatest benefactor would be charities. There's never been a more giving people, than people of the United States. Whenever anybody needs anything, we turn out our pockets and find a way to help in the ways that only we can. Social services would have more people volunteering, contributing resources and time to solve virtually every problem in our country and on the planet.
Like most programs born of academia, the 15% rule, if applied correctly, could have “the unintended consequences”. The new Congress was elected on a wave of fiscal responsibility. One would hope, they would take Pres. Obama's idea of 15% and apply it across the board. In this way, the president would provide the tool to save our country from its leaders, transforming his reign from one of embarrassment, to one of accomplishment beyond the wildest dreams of even Ronald Reagan.
http://www.insuranceheadlines.com/Health-Insurance/7061.html
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