From my wonky perspective, this is the most important part of Mike Stenhouse’s health care–related op-ed in today’s Providence Journal:

I believe that a two-pronged approach to health care can ensure affordable access for every American. First, let patients determine what level of coverage they need by repealing most government mandates. Health services and insurance have become unaffordable because of rapidly expanding government interference in the market. The free market did not create our health-care crisis; over-regulation did. Increased transparency and consumerism, as well as major tort reform, could reduce medical liability risks and further drive down costs.

Second, subsidies or vouchers for low- and middle-income Americans to purchase private insurance is a benefit a wealthy society such as ours should provide. If we pool all of the federal and state dollars currently allocated to health care — and eliminate wasteful government bureaucracies — we can subsidize sustainable, lower-cost, high-quality private health care for those who need assistance.

I’ve been arguing for this for about as long as health care policy has been a visible national topic of conversation.  Allow catastrophic-coverage plans that protect people in the case of… umm… catastrophe, and route everything else through health savings accounts that have some sort of tax favorability for those who contribute to them (whether the plan owner, an employer, or some sort of benefactor), from which Americans pay directly for health care services.

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Such a program would cover everybody for the unpredictable worst, and it would preserve the utility of a pricing mechanism.  People would know what they’re paying for services and could decide whether any given procedure was worth the money.  Moreover, as a society, we could better understand what we’re funding when we deposit money into the accounts of our disadvantaged neighbors.  We could look at the cost of providing everybody with catastrophic coverage plus some basic preventative and emergency care, and then we could debate what additional services ought to be covered through the welfare program.

Meanwhile, employers, private charities, and others could make similar decisions for people in whom they take an interest.  Of course, this wouldn’t allow progressives to control our lives or siphon money from our health care.