Ron and Rand Paul - The rEVOLution Continues

[XenaLives]

Yearly checkups have been shown to be of little use:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/skip-your-annual-physical.html?_r=0

Depression is a life threatening event, and it is often a miss-diagnosis of an underlying medical condition that is causing it.

Amendment 69, which was voted down in Colorado and will be back in the interim election, was on the right track. Here are some of its provisions, from memory, but I believe them to be accurate:

1) It was a separate unit of state government funded by payroll taxes.
2) It was administered by 21 local representatives elected by popular vote of all people paying into the plan. It was a co-op, not a government program.
3) All providers were covered at the same rate, 1.25-1.5 times Medicare reimbursement rates.
4) No deductibles, no co-pays for medical service and drugs (purely elective treatments that serve no medical purpose were excluded).

Administration costs would go from 30% to about 4%.

Additional savings would come from eliminating duplicate and ineffective services. Patients would be free to choose any doctor and never have to find a new one unless they felt they weren't getting the treatment they need. This is much more important than the annual physical - which would probably be eliminated.