Restoring Quality Health Care

A Six-Point Plan for Comprehensive Reform at Lower Cost

Scott W. Atlas

• Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780817923952
• eBook ISBN: 9780817923969
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Policy

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) granted the federal government unprecedented regulatory authority over health insurance and the health care industry. Those changes ignore the fundamental problems with the existing system: the incentives that have caused runaway costs and excluded millions of Americans from accessing the world's best medical care. Many former ACA supporters now push for an even more extreme takeover of the US system: overt single-payer health care, or "Medicare for All." In Restoring Quality Health Care, Dr. Scott W. Atlas offers a fundamentally different approach to improving America's health care system. Instead of framing the debate with the traditional trade-offs—fewer benefits versus higher taxes—his plan is modeled around a new paradigm: restoring the appropriate market-based incentives to increase the quality of health care and reduce its costs. He proposes a six-point reform plan for US health care centering on lower-cost catastrophic coverage and universal, significantly expanded health savings accounts (HSAs). The plan transforms the US health care system and enhances innovation by instilling market-based competition and empowering consumers through incentives and strategic deregulation. Most important, the health care reforms in this plan reflect the key principles held by Americans concerning what they value and expect from health care in terms of access, choice, and quality.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Chapter One. Setting the Record Straight on US Health Care, Single-Payer Systems, and Medicare for All
• Chapter Two. Reform #1: Expand Affordable Private Insurance
• Chapter Three. Reform #2: Establish and Liberalize Universal Health Savings Accounts
• Chapter Four. Reform #3: Instill Rational Tax Treatment of Health Spending with Appropriate Incentives
• Chapter Five. Reform #4: Modernize Medicare for the Twenty-First Century
• Chapter Six. Reform #5: Overhaul Medicaid and Eliminate the Second-Class System for Poor Americans
• Chapter Seven. Reform #6: Strategically Increase Health Care Supply, Create Transparency, and Foster Innovation
• Key Questions and Answers on the Atlas Plan
• Notes
• About the Author