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6 ways to fix the healthcare system

If we think any of our presidential candidates are going to fix healthcare, it’s time to douse ourselves with a large vat of very cold water.

As I listen to them speak, I can’t help but think that the grand plans these politicians have in store are just sound bites, based on limited market knowledge and even less insight into the complexities of the U.S. healthcare system.

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Healthcare is not an easy fix. The emergence of new drugs and new technology continue to drive up costs. And our political differences have thrown a whole new level of administrative cost stupidity at our mind-numbing problem.

Harsh medicine needed

No doubt politicians are attempting to do the right thing and spur private industry to come up with solutions that we all can live with. They are simply echoing what we all feel: We don’t want less care, or less choice or less innovation. But to get these, we are going to need revolutionary changes.

This is what we need to do:

1. Look closely at our hospital systems and seriously address the redundancies in larger cities.

2. Eliminate waste, fraud and abuse by increasing accountability.

3. Make the users of healthcare the payers of healthcare; the consequences of a bad lifestyle need to be understood.

4. Not tolerate the duplication of unnecessary lab tests. Can you imagine paying for dry cleaning twice?

5. Simplify healthcare administration. No one understands the contorted rules of healthcare plans.

6. Seriously consider mandates.

I, for one, think it’s time for the politicians to hit the ‘pause button’, step aside and let more knowledgeable stakeholders make a run at fixing our healthcare system.

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