I'll answer yours and add my own:

1. Stock Market and Insurance. You are dead on with this idea. But, it's not just Insurance that is in trouble for speculating in the stock market. It's just about every large company. I work for a large drug wholesaler (buy from manufacturer, sell to drug stores, grocery stores) and our profits are influenced in large part by what the stock market does. It was the same with the airline I worked for. Because of competition, there wasn't much we could do with the price, but we could take people's money early, then make up the difference in investments. So, when the market is down, these companies cut costs in horrific fashion, to deal not only with lack of margin, but also with their market losses. We have become a nation of people and companies who want to "gamble" to get rich.

Now, for the next part. Insurance as a "for profit" company. I also agree here. The greed of insurance companies is incredible. And, by having insurance as "for profit", they are incented to deny coverage, cut coverage, and limit coverage as much as possible. And that does not help with the health of people. We could probably find/treat many early cancers if everyone were required to have some non-invasive MRI/scan on their body every 2-3 years. If we looked at the patterns in these cancers, we might even "discover" that we're killing ourselves on french fries, and maybe even Diet Coke. (things the big food companies don't want us to find out)

The problem here is greed, and I think there are 2-3 solutions. First, limit the compensation of all executives (not just insurance companies) to about 10 million dollars a year (stock options/everything). I don't mind them getting rich, I just don't want them getting "filthy" rich. I think there should be more "mutual" insurance companies where the owners and the beneficiaries are the same. Large companies like American Airlines self-insure, and hire a management insurance company. Smaller companies could be pooled (not by the 10's or 20's) by the 1000's to create large-enough entities to self insure. I don't like a complete government solution because of the inefficiecies of it, but if insurance was non-profit and small companies were pooled and it was regulated, we could be OK.

2. Malpractice

This is where I think we could make the largest difference. I'm all for paying someone who has been treated badly by a doctor, or is injured because of a medical mistake. And I don't think that "actual" damages should be limited. If you lose your house because you can no longer work, because of a medical error, then you should well compensated. However, I think punitive damages should NOT be awarded to the injured, but to the government. (I believe this for ALL punitive damages). Some of the money should be set aside to handle others injured by this doctor AND the rest should be collected to provide healthcare for the poor. This would put BILLIONS every year in punitive damages into the healthcare system. Some could even be used for auditors to prevent future abuses.

In the current system, very little money is available for oversight and many hospital errors are caused because the auditors only come every 4 years for a good hospital, and every 2 for an average one, and every year for a bad one.

3. This last one is Pharmacy greed, but it's also pure politics. Many meds that are on the market today don't save the life of someone, they just "enhance the lifestyle". Also, pharmaceuticals know their business and "treat conditions" rather than cure people. This is difficult, because I think as we learn more about the human body, drugs SHOULD be customized to the DNA of each person to make them more effective. Yet, because of the expense of it, it probably won't be done. Even the U.S. Medicare system pays for drugs for "erectile dysfunction", but won't pay for blood pressure medicine or arthritis. This is just politics and messed-up priorities. Actually, from someone who works for a drug wholesaler, we make our highest margin on generics. But, I understand the arguments that the drug manufacturers make about the cost of research and development. I think the U.S. does need better drug prices, and the rest of the world needs to pay more. So maybe we need to make the world share the costs, instead of us bearing most of the R&D costs. As a country, we could deny patent renewals, or even shorten the time a patent is effective.

Also, understand that drug research is crap shoot. You don't know going in if a particular med will have side effects in humans. You have to do years of studies to see if it might. It is very expensive. So, how do you do it at low cost? I don't really know. This is a tough one. You might try thousands of combinations before finding something that appears to work, then find that it has side effects in .01% of the population and you have to pull it.

Here are some ideas of mine to help the healthcare system:

1. I think we should give individuals more power/responsibility over their health. For patients who are relatively educated, or are on "routine medicine", we should not require a doctor's prescription, or allow a prescription to be written for a long period of time. Prescriptions should be transferable, easily. For example, I've been on blood pressure medicine for about 12 years. I have to visit the doctor every 6 months or so to get a new prescription. He only does labs about every 2 years, to check for blood levels. Why shouldn't I get a prescription for 2 years for my med? Why can't the prescription be encrypted on a "smart card" and be portable to any pharmacy I chose? If my kids have an ear infection, if the answer is an ear culture and anti-biotic, why can't I go directly to a lab, have a tech swab out the ear, do the culture, and then let me get my own anti-biotics? In doing this, you sign an agreement that you agree that you are responsible for your own healthcare with respect to these procedures and can't sue the doctor. Doctors could still be used for serious cases, but the routine stuff we would handle ourselves. Especially for those who would be willing to take responsibility for themselves, and educate themselves (for example, on drug interactions).

2. I think we should limit the top-end compensations for all executives to about 10 million per year for everything. We should require companies to limit their exposure by limiting their investment in the stock market to 25-50% of their available funds, and the rest would have to be in other mechanisms (bonds and such). Companies should have some margin in their products and not sell at cost, so even when the market tanks they are still making money. Too many companies' future profits are tied to what the Dow and Nasdaq are going to do in the next 12 months.

3. We all should reduce our debt, personal, corporate, and federal. This is going to blow up in the next 10 years and it won't be pretty. I'm amazed a what companies loan for these days. Maybe if we all "couldn't pay our debts", they would tighten up the lending practices.

4. I think we should donate more to charities and churches and ask them to DO MORE to help the poor in this and other countries, and NOT build another Crystal Cathedral. If we Christian seriously helped the poor instead of building fancy church buildings, maybe the world would think differently of us. By the way, two of the large non-profit Hospitals in the D/FW area are Baylor Medical System (Baptist) and Methodist Healthcare system. The sad part is that the church stopped supporting them long ago, and they are just non-profit businesses now. In the late 1800 and early 1900's they were teaching hospitals and helped the poor.

5. We all need to seriously exercise more and watch what we eat. I spend WAY TOO MUCH TIME at the computer, so I'm 285 pounds, 6' 1". My wife spends NO time at the computer, she's 5' 7", 125 pounds. Maybe if fat were taxed? Maybe if I was fined for not exercising 4-5 times per week.

6. Finally, if we're not going to allow patients to take care of themselves in many things, then we need to graduate about 4x as many doctors and nurses as we do today. We need to be expanding medical schools and nursing programs like crazy. I don't think we absolutely HAVE to do this, but we need to be expanding over the next 10 years or so.

My thoughts

Glen

It's part of what I disagree with.

The main function of government should be to protect the natural borders of the country.

It should also protect and assist in the building of the infrastructure of the country.

It should ensure fair competition in the business infrastructure of the country.

It should protect industry within the country, and ensure fair and equitable trade and negotiations with other countries.

The functions of government should not include providing for my healthcare, social security, or welfare.

That being said, I also believe strongly in charity, that we are responsible for our fellow man, but that those donations should be voluntary, not compulsive. And we should be more than willing to donate.

The problem with our country is that the government is taxing us so heavily that we can no longer donate freely.

If you add up your sales tax, income tax, social security contributions, gas tax, excise tax, and property tax, I think you would that we're probably paying out about 30-40% of our income in taxes. And the government still runs a huge budget deficit.

100 years ago, we did not have an income tax, social security, and socialized health care. All of that occurred in this century.

So, is the government spending our money efficiently? What do you guys think? Do you think they would spend healthcare dollars from larger taxes any more efficently than the market would? I think not.

However, I think socialized medicine is probably inevitable in this country, because medicine has done a wonderful job of pricing itself out of the market. That being said, if we can provide large pools of private insurers for small companies and the poor, then it would be preferable to a large national "single payer" plan.