How Would a Doctor Fix Our Health Care System?

The state of health care and insurance in our country has been a hot topic in recent months. Politicians have tried and failed to fix it – perhaps because they have no real experience with it themselves. As the director of a locally recognized sleep center, board certified in Sleep Medicine and Internal Medicine, and involved in clinical research – Dr. Kakar, M.D., M.P.H. has a vested interest in health care reform.

What’s Wrong With our Health Care System?

Costs of insurance are rising as the quality goes down. Dr. Kakar has talked with many patients, physicians and small business owners and they all have the same consensus – the rising costs of insurance premiums combined with higher deductibles are forcing many people to not get the routine and preventative care that they need. This increases their risk for more serious problems down the line. The unsustainable 10%-20% increase in premiums each year also makes it a struggle for small business owners to cover even part of the premiums for their employees.

What are Dr. Kakar’s Suggestions?

Dr. Kakar has a few suggestions that he believes would go a long way towards fixing our broken health care system in America.

• There should be a cap on insurance premiums – perhaps 2%-3% per year.
• There should also be a limit on deductibles.
• Routine insurance and catastrophic insurance could be split into two separate policies.
• Pre-existing conditions should continue to not be excluded – everyone deserves health care.
• Medicare could be opened up to certain income levels at a reasonable price to the consumer. This would not put all the burden of coverage on the government and it would also help to promote competition in policy pricing.

Finally, Dr. Kakar wants to emphasize that the problem is not with our nation’s health care, but it lies instead with our health insurance.