@13. Old Soldier:
Here is a little advice. While trying to make a point to a non-Marxist audience, do not use the phrase “outrageous profits.” Please define, by return on equity, what level of profit you consider to be “outrageous.”
Insurance companies add no value to our healthcare system, yet they consistently post higher profits than productive industries. It’s not strictly a matter of return on equity – it’s also a matter of utility.
Having worked for a health insurer at one point in life, I have seen first-hand what drives insurance costs. After actually paying medical expenses, compliance with state regulations is #2.
The bottom line is that health insurance companies don’t add any value to healthcare. They are dead weight.
@16. Chuck Pelto:
Insurance companies do not set the pricing of consumables or services at hospitals. That is up to the Board of Directors at the ‘non-profit’ hospital.
Nice strawman, Chuck. Nobody said insurance companies were setting prices. Are you still drunk? The point is that health insurance companies are a waste of money.
@17. iconoclast:
If the insurance company overhead is hurting medical prices, then the overhead of complying with government-controlled health care will kill medical prices.
Health care dollars spent on insurance companies are wasted. Compliance costs would be hugely reduced under a public, universal system.
As usual, you comment on things about which you know nothing.
I know it’s hard to look at the facts when they don’t agree with you. But try not to make it personal, thanks.
@18. Chuck Pelto:
This has absolutely NOTHING to do with insurance companies.
It has everything to do with the lack of comprehensive health coverage for all.
Stupid people like David S think it’s all about ‘insurance’ when obviously, to anyone with more than two synapses to rub together, it’s much MUCH more.
You keep calling me names, Chuck, because your arguments are weak. I never claimed it was all about insurance. Universal coverage is a solution to many of the problems with our current system. Blaming the AMA for our health care system’s problems is one of the more ignorant assertions on this comment thread. So stop with the Bull Pucky, and put an end to the personal attacks. You are proving only your own lack of insight.
@20. Paul of Alexandria:
The more fundamental problem is that our current system has a negative impact on the health of our citizens, and costs more than superior care in other countries. Why should Americans not explore ways to improve our health care? Under universal coverage, the cost of your saline drip will no doubt be much more reasonable.
The problem is that going to a single-payer system will not improve our health care.
Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money. The potential savings on paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without paying any more than we already do.
The U.S. already rations care. Rationing in U.S. health care is based on income: if you can afford care, you get it; if you can’t, you don’t. A recent study by the prestigious Institute of Medicine found that 18,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance. Many more skip treatments that their insurance company refuses to cover. That’s rationing. Other countries do not ration in this way.
Why follow a for-profit insurance model when the evidence shows that this increases costs and reduces quality of care? It makes much more sense to learn from our failures, and the success of others, and craft a national single-payer system. It’s better for everyone.
Peace.
DS
