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John Munger: Blogging for Arizona's Future |
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Sep3Written by:John Munger
9/3/2010 10:32 AM  One of the major impediments to economic growth in Arizona is our archaic and business-killing regulatory system. Regulations are written by the regulators in order to give them maximum room for exercising power. Regulations are therefore purposefully vague, allowing for broad interpretations which maximize regulators' power and correspondingly increase risk and costs to business investors being regulated. Unfortunately, the more vague regulations are, the more they are subject to "interpretation" by regulators, and the more difficult they are for businesses to satisfy. Businesses simply don't know what the rules are until the regulations are "interpreted" by the regulators. These kinds of vague regulations kill investment and jobs.
The way to solve this problem is to require regulators to write clear and unambiguous regulations which make the "rules" clear to all concerned. The way to do that is simple---just adopt a law in Arizona that says that all "interpretations" of regulations must be determined in favor of the business applicant. In other words, force regulators to write clear regulations, making it evident on the face of the regulations what it is they want to regulate and how. Clearly written regulations should not require "interpretations," and since the regulators are the people who write such regulations they should be the ones who carry the burden to write clearly. If they don't do so, and insist that their own regulations must be "interpreted" in the context of a business transaction, it should be them and not the business who carries the risk. The way to put the risk on them is to require that if any "interpretations" of their regulations are required, because they have written the regulations vaguely, then the rule WILL be interpreted in favor of the business applicant.
Businesses are willing to comply with regulations. They just want to know what the rules are. Regulators should be obligated to write the rules embodied in their regulations in a manner which is easily understandable, clear, and does not require "interpretations." Once Arizona's regulatory processes are made simple, clear, and fair to businesses trying to comply with them, more investment can and will occur. Jobs will be created, and Arizona's economy will begin to thrive again.Tags: |
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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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More Ideas from ImagineArizona! |
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imagine arizona, state of arizona public policy, future of arizona, bi-partisan leadership |
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