Senator Kent Conrad has an idea (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/has_kent_conrad_solved_the_pub.html?hpid=topnews). Lets create non-profit coops which will act as health plans in addition to the current health plans. This is meant to be a compromise between single payer government model and just market based model.
It is not clear why the coops of 2010 are different than a Blue Cross or Blue Shield plan of 50 years ago. If we are really injecting competition why don't we lower barriers to entry? There are lots of companies in "nearby" industries who could enter this market if it was made attractive.
Apparently coops will be sized to reach 500,000 members. A 500,000 member plan will be one of smaller participants in most markets. It is not clear to me what savings such a small plan will achieve either in administrative costs or demand management.
I hope the senate can come up with something more transformative.
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