His Own Pocket Universe

Rand Paul, Kentucky senator and professional idiot, showed up to offer his solution for health care costs:  insurance with deductibles so high that everybody pays in cash.

Capitalism has not been tried yet in health care. Most of health care is government-fixed prices and there’s very little capitalism. In fact, I’m a physician. In my practice, about 3% of my practice was capitalism. Those are people who came in with high deductibles or paid cash. That marketplace worked because we did bid down prices on things that people came in and paid for.

Sure.  See, without the profit motive in health care, people just get sick and expect insurance they're paying premiums for every month to actually pay for their health care, the crazy bastards.  You're supposed to be healthy, and not get sick, so you don't need to burden America with the cost of your illness.

Of course, when your deductible for everything is so high that you're basically paying cash up front for health care, it'll scare everyone into being healthier, right?

Well...

Furthermore, the idea that shifting costs onto consumers will force them to change their health-related behavior doesn’t hold water because 70 percent of national health costs derive from 10 percent of the population. That 10 percent consists of the Americans who have such extensive health care needs and high medical costs that their treatments fall well outside the scope of their deductibles — so in many cases, they don’t have either the incentive or the ability to choose to lead healthier lifestyles.

So people who are really sick, who really need health care the most, are responsible for most of the costs.  Capitalism would suggest we start addressing the issues with how that care is given out, not punishing people with health insurance that won't pay out 90% of the time.

Oh wait, Rand Paul.  Punishing the poor for being poor is all that matters to him.