The Wall Street Journal reports that Rudy Giuliani is preparing to unveil a market-based health care plan:

    He envisions a system where neither state regulations nor federal tax law push people into expensive plans rich in benefits. Rather, health insurance should be more like car insurance, he said, where people pay out of pocket for minor repairs and maintenance....

    Many health policy experts say the individual market will only work well if Americans are forced to buy insurance, thus injecting into the system younger, healthier people who are now uninsured and balancing out sicker, more expensive patients. That was the approach taken by Massachusetts under former Gov. Mitt Romney, one of Mr. Giuliani's rivals for the party nomination. Democratic candidate John Edwards has called for a similar mandate for individuals buying insurance, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, also in the running, is expected to as well.

    But Mr. Giuliani rejects a government mandate that all individuals purchase coverage. To do that, he said, the government would have to subsidize the bill for those who can't afford coverage, which would drive up the overall cost. In Massachusetts, the state is subsidizing coverage for poor and low-income families. For example, a family of three earning as much as $51,510 a year could receive a subsidy.

    More important, Mr. Giuliani says, is to give consumers more choice. He would supplant state regulations, which require that insurance companies offer benefits ranging from chiropractic care to fertility treatments. Instead, people across the country could buy insurance from any company in any state, meaning they could find cheaper, more basic plans than those now available in their particular state....

    "What I would do is change the whole model that we have for health insurance in this country," Mr. Giuliani said. "The problem with our health insurance is it's government- and employer dominated. People don't make individual choices."


I'll be interested in seeing the plan once it gets fleshed out, but broadly speaking, I like the approach. I particularly like this part of the article:

    in Mr. Giuliani's view, the U.S. health-care system's major problem is a lack of consumer choice. "It's your health; you should own your own insurance," he said in Tuesday's debate. "The reality is that we need a free market."


A Republican who understands that we do not have a free market in health care! Finally!