konfab
Honorary Master
The problem is that the industry is regulated to the point of retardation. Current way the state wants you to pay for healthcare is to pay for health insurance, that is after all the only thing you get tax credits for.
The problem is that whilst insurance works for things that you cannot foresee, like getting cancer or having an ER visit. It doesn't work for things that you know need to be done. You don't go to your car's insurance to pay for them to change a spark plug or get you a new tire. The same can be said for primary care.
If the state wanted the simplest and cheapest way to dramatically improve healthcare, they would change the way health insurance works. You should get tax credits for what is an advanced hospital plan, and that covers care that you cannot get at a GP. This is risk based and hence insurable. Then you get a different set of tax credits for having a direct primary care plan. Basically, every month you just pay a doctor's office a fixed amount of money. In return, they give you all the care that they can provide.
This is what happens in the US, where insurance is expensive enough that people just forgo it.
https://reason.com/2021/06/19/what-free-market-health-care-would-actually-look-like/
It solves three big problems for doctors:
1) They have a stable income provided they provide a good service
2) They don't have to waste time and money submitting claims to the medical aid
3) They don't have to chase people for money.
Patients win because:
1) Healthcare costs will be lower because your medical aid no longer has to cover primary care.
2) You effectively can go to the doctor way more than you already do, which means that you get more for your money
3) Doctors really need to prioritise service levels and care because they need the business of patients in the long term.
It actually makes the whole system cheaper because they don't have to use the insurance system to claim re-imbursements
