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John Munger: Blogging for Arizona's Future |
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| Author: | John Munger | Created: | 6/19/2010 7:22 AM |  | | Arizona is a Great place. But Imagine with us what Arizona COULD be. Join us in creating SOLUTIONS to make Arizona the BEST OF AMERICA'S FUTURE!! |
By John Munger on 6/20/2010 6:07 PM
It is quite clear that, overall, Arizona spends an incredible amount of its K-12 education resources OUTSIDE the classroom and on things other than paying teachers. The Arizona Auditor General has found that only $.57 of Arizona's education dollar gets into the classroom. In some districts, like Tucson Unified School District, that number is only $.53. Overall, Arizona spends around $7,000 per student every year on K-12 education (apart from capital costs such as buildings), but teachers receive only about $2,000 of that per student taught. Where is the other $5,000 per student going?Yet it is very difficult to determine exactly where education money is spent because schools and school districts use a wide variety of accounting systems, most of which are not transparent or understandable to outsiders. They are required to use a uniform standard for reporting only monies received directly from the State, but do NOT use uniform standards in accounting for monies received from a wide variety of other sources. Thus,... Read More » | By John Munger on 6/19/2010 7:35 AM
For too many years Arizona has focused on the SYMPTOMS of our maladies, and not the maladies themselves. A good example is the State economic woes. Everyone talks about the State budget deficit as if that were the real problem---the real disease---but it is not. The REAL problem is that we do not have enough private sector jobs---our economy is weak. Fix the REAL problem by rebuilding jobs and the economy and the budget deficit will fix itself. Not only will we create more jobs, but at the same time we will create taxpayers, remove people from the public assistance roles (thus reducing state expenses), and refill our State Treasury. Yet too many of our "leaders" spend all their time talking about how to balance the State "checkbook" and NO time talikng about how to rebuild the economy and jobs! Too many of our "leaders," then, focus on managing the Crisis rather than envisioning and planning for a long term future.We must demand more depth and more vision in our leaders. We need long term, strategic, visionary... Read More » | By John Munger on 6/19/2010 7:25 AM
Welcome to our new blog for ImagineArizona! We invite you to present your ideas and solutions to make Arizona the BEST OF AMERICA'S FUTURE, with the best economy, the most jobs per capita, the highest GDP per capita, the best education system, with the best quality of life in the world. Please keep your comments positive, and refrain from personal remarks or smears. Here Arizonans will finally have a place to discuss IDEAS and ARIZONA'S FUTURE.
(We reserve the right to remove any comments which do not meet our standards in that regard; although the failure to remove same will not indicate our agreement with them and may be the result simply of inadequate time to edit. We are not responsible in any manner for entries, comments, or remarks by others and will hold all parties responsible for any problems arising from their entries, comments or remarks.)
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| Health care reform Arizona can tackle | By: John F. Munger
August 28, 2009 - 4:22PM
Regardless of federal actions, Arizona can be a national model for health care reform.
By simply fixing what needs to be fixed, and not creating huge bureaucracies, bankrupting the state, or intervening between doctors and patients, we can solve the principal problems of rising costs of care and accessibility of care for all.
First, to finally control costs we must reinvigorate consumer cost decision-making, which is the most fundamental pressure favoring lowering costs. Medical consumers make few cost decisions and simply pass the medical bill to their insurer. Yet, in medical procedures for which consumers are compelled to make cost decisions for medical care that is not generally covered by insurance, such as for corrective laser eye surgery or cosmetic surgery, costs have dropped drastically in the last 20 years because of competitive forces.
The first steps Arizona should empower consumer decision-making and competition in medicine. First, on the supply side we should allow Arizonans to competitively select any health insurance program available in any state, rather than limit Arizonans' choices to a few programs selected by our regulators. On the demand side, we should invigorate consumer decision-making by requiring that all medical and pharmaceutical providers quote their prices on a public Web site each month for public comparison.
Just as insurance companies give safe driving discounts and nonsmoking discounts, they will soon start to provide hot lines to help people select several reasonably priced alternatives for medical care or products as well as "good decision-making" discounts for insureds who act rationally in selecting reasonably priced care. Consumer choice will be enhanced. Prices will begin to decline.
In addition, Arizona should adopt a simple tort reform measure that, as with contract-related litigation today, requires that parties losing medical malpractice actions pay at least some reasonable portion of the winners' attorney's fees. Used by the English for centuries, this creates risk and causes all players to carefully analyze their case before they file, and would substantially reduce the number of frivolous medical malpractice actions, and medical costs, in Arizona.
Finally, Arizona could reduce medical costs by requiring that medical insurers give discounts to consumers who allow their medical records to be transmitted electronically via a secured system, thereby reducing costs of care. Again, no requirement - just a consumer option.
Reform the coverage
Adopting these three simple measures would drastically reduce medical costs. In turn, that would improve accessibility of medical care to more people. But we can easily do more.
Arizona should require that all insurance policies be portable and not tied to employment. We must allow individuals and associations to create groups in order to negotiate favorable health insurance not tied to employment.
We should require that all persons with pre-existing illnesses be accepted into medical insurance pools. Persons with pre-existing problems caused by their own lifestyles, such as obesity, smoking, dangerous activities or hobbies, or who repeatedly did not follow medical recommendations of their doctors, could be required to pay a limited additional premium for their lifestyle choices and the burden they cause to the health care system. But persons with pre-existing illnesses not based on lifestyle choices, and who follow reasonable medical directions, would not incur any additional premium.
Finally, we must assure that all those remaining who still cannot afford health insurance have easy access to our state Medicaid program and KidsCare for children. With both programs, the main problem is that people simply do not sign up until they need medical care - but, in reality, most do have coverage once they need it. But we must constantly re-evaluate our entry levels to assure fairness.
Arizona can solve the problems of rising health care costs and accessibility by simply fixing the problems that need to be fixed. Let's do it now!
John Munger of Tucson is the chairman of ImagineArizona.com, a public policy organization that promotes solutions to Arizona's public policy issues.
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