At a recent press conference President Obama chastised members of Congress for spending so much time trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare as most refer to it. He said that members of Congress are trying to deny health care coverage to 30 million Americans, eliminate a provision that covers children on their parents plan up to the age of 26 and eliminate benefits for the prescription drug "donut hole" for seniors. Why, he wondered, do they make this issue their primary concern?

The reality of course is different. Those who want to repeal Obamacare want to do so primarily because the law is a "train wreck" as many have referred to it. Adding 30 million people, who can't afford to pay for their own health care, will drive up the health care cost for the other 300 million Americans who can afford to pay for healthcare and/or supplements. Prior to the law, paying for health care and prescription drugs was too expensive. Paying for health care, prescription drugs and a huge government bureaucracy will only be more expensive.

In addition, every poll indicates that the majority of Americans do not want this law and actually fear its implementation. Small businesses are afraid that the increased cost will reduce their profit significantly and may drive them out of business. Young people fear that forcing them to buy insurance that people in their 20's don't really need, will be a heavy burden on top of their school loans and the lack of opportunity that the President's economic policies have produced. And the rest of us fear the higher taxes from the individual mandate tax, the employer mandate tax, the surtax on investment income, the excise tax on comprehensive insurance plans, the increase in the Medicare payroll tax, the medicine cabinet tax, the HSA withdrawal tax, the cap on spending accounts, the tax on medical device manufacturers, the reduction in medical itemized deductions, the indoor tanning tax, an increase in the excise tax on tobacco, the excise tax on charitable hospitals, the tax on innovative drug companies, the tax on health insurers, and the "black liquor" tax. There are a total of 21 new or increased taxes, some which have already gone into effect.

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But the President did raise one very interesting point. While Congress is trying desperately to repeal Obamacare they have not suggested any specific replacement plan. How about this one?

First off, let's determine exactly the problem. The problem is that 1) the price of health care is too high and rapidly increasing and 2) there is not enough reasonably priced services available to cover the needs of the population. In other words the price is too high and the quantity too low. How do we fix this?

The basic concept for a solution is not that difficult to see. In a specific market, whenever the price is too high and the quantity too low, we fix the problem by increasing the supply. This puts downward pressure on price and increases the quantity available. In the market for healthcare services, a better plan is to vastly increase the supply of doctors and other medical professionals. By doing this, there would be more services available to the market. This would add competition which always results in significant downward pressure on price, increases in the quantity of services available and vast improvements in the quality of services. That is, when supply increases, prices fall and the quantity rises.

There are probably 2 to 4 qualified applicants to medical school for every opening. If we built more medical schools and increased enrollments at existing medical schools, it would take four years to see the increase in supply to reach the market. Once there, the doctors would compete for business by offering lower priced and more efficiently delivered health care services.

If the lower price was still out of reach for some Americans we could simply expand Medicaid and/or construct clinics. Perhaps we offer a program to medical students where, instead of them having huge debts from medical school, the taxpayers would cover the medical school cost. In return the new doctors pledge to work in Medicaid type clinics for a short time at a modest salary.

The other part of the solution would be tort reform. The problem here is that lawyers are encouraged to seek huge rewards in malpractice cases, primarily because they receive a percentage, often one fourth to on third, of the settlement. To cure this we change the way attorney's bill from a percentage of the award to a multiple of their normal rate. This recognizes the increased risk to the lawyer of taking a contingency case, even though the data indicates that lawyers win about 90% of the contingency cases they represent. In other words a lawyer agrees to contingency billing only when she is about 90% certain of at least some reward.

So if their hourly rate was $500 for regular cases they could charge two or three times that for contingency cases. This would likely reduce the size of the settlements and eliminate the incentive for lawyers to build a huge case.

Repealing Obamacare is a good start, perhaps leaving in place those components that the majority of people want. Then we replace it with a plan to vastly increase the number of doctors and other medical professionals, while instituting tort reform which changes the billing practices of attorneys. For those still not able to purchase health care services, Medicaid or some type of government clinics, staffed by new doctors who use their employment in these clinics to satisfy the cost of medical schools, would be available.

This is a true market based solution.

Michael Busler, Ph.D. is a public policy analyst and an Associate Professor at Richard Stockton College.

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