Health Care at a Lower Cost

I read the WSJ's 7/15/09 article on the House's Health Care Plan, and I don’t understand how the plan would work.

Apparently the bill actually requires people to have health insurance. Is that regulation going to be enforced? Are my tax dollars actually going to fund the tracking of fugitives from health insurance? I might be able to support compelling parents to provide health insurance for their children so as not to take chances with their health care and I plan on maintaining health insurance coverage for myself, but if a competent adult decides not to do the same, I don't see why they shouldn't have that right.

Is all of this an effort to foster a market for lower cost health care? At what a cost! We can do better than this. Why doesn't everyone who wants to expand the coverage of health care spend their resources providing incentives to health care providers to offer low cost services rather than make everyone participate in this seriously flawed endeavor.

Apparently, the plan "would provide families earning up to $88,000 a year with subsidies to help them buy coverage." After all the trouble of what this bill plans to put in place, health care still wouldn't be cheap enough to be independently purchased by a family earning $88k?

Can't we, concerned citizens, find a better way to encourage low cost health care in this country? Organizations raise money for health care all the time. Let's do it in a way that would help the industry find the models that work for providing health care at lower costs.

If we had a million dollars to give away to the providers that make health care affordable what would we do? Give some to physicians who give an effective physical examination at the lowest price? (How would we make sure the quality was high?) Give some to an insurance company that offers a certain standard of coverage at the lowest price? (What would the standard of coverage be?) Give some to the hospital that charges the lowest amount for a given "basket" of services? (What would comprise the "basket" of services?) This industry likes to make money as much as any other industry does. I think it will respond, and that the answer is behind these questions. Any thoughts?