heath care reform costs

[Kratos]

“Reform” Means You Pay More for Health Care

A major new report confirms the worst fears of many: Health care reform will raise the costs for most Americans—by about 18% on average. That is on top of existing inflation of health coverage.

Once the plan is fully phased-in (by 2019), a typical family of four would pay an extra $4,000 each year.

When combined with existing inflation, costs would rise from today’s $12,300 annual average to $25,900. Of that 111% increase, $9,600 is due to existing factors uncorrected by the legislation, and $4,000 due to additional costs created by the legislation.

For single persons, the differential is projected at $1,500 a year. Premiums would rise from today’s $4,600 a year to $9,600 overall.

Prepared by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), the new analysis was requested by AHIP—America’s Health Insurance Plans. It focuses on the leading plan pending in Congress, sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D, MT), which is scheduled for a Senate Finance Committee vote on Tuesday. The PWC report can be read here.
The PWC projections track what The Heritage Foundation and many others have said about the legislation: It does not save money. It simply taxes those who have health coverage and uses the money to give care to others.

The White House is said to be livid. After all, President Obama’s claims that he makes care more affordable are exposed as a myth by the new study. Lawmakers claim the bill would “save” money, but that’s not true for those who have insurance. The only “savings” would be to those who receive government-paid health care and subsidies at the cost of higher prices for everyone else. (Even if the legislation “reduced the deficit”, it would do so by making citizens pay more, not by controlling government spending.)

Despite the enormous costs, estimates say 25-million people would remain uninsured under the Baucus bill. The new study also criticizes the Baucus plan for not placing tougher mandates and penalties on those who do not buy health insurance, which would help spread the costs (and create new customers for insurers). PWC reports higher costs would occur due to these parts of the bill:

■Requirements to cover pre-existing conditions with guaranteed-issue insurance
■The new tax created on so-called “high cost” health care plans
■The new taxes on medical devices and other segments of health care
■Reduction in Medicare payments, which care providers would offset by raising rates on their other patients.
The report will be denounced as a political attack by the insurance industry. But the real attack is Washington’s assault on our pocketbooks and our freedoms.


http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/12/...r-health-care/

[TITANIUM]

Hmmmmm.

I would like to say that I was surprised.

We all knew that this was going to be funded with tax payers dollars, Right?

It would seem that, if the people that are voting on this were paying for there own health care costs,(not the taxpayers), then things would go differently.

But It does not effect them.

I'm so sick of big government that can't control it's own spending costs.

Point: How many people could have had health care, that they could not afford, with funds diverted from the war in Iraq?

Or the 850 billion dollars for the bank bail out?

The country has been sold, and we are just renting here at this point.

It is Bankrupt!

Kratos usually posts some interesting things here, and I enjoy reading and casting my opinion.

So, I will watch this post and chime in, as usual, here and there.

Best

T

[xlxBigSexyxlx]

[OCTOBER-2009]

Good Post! Finally the truth comes out.

The Federal Government is not interested in providing health care to citizens. It is interested in controling Billions in healthcare dollars which account for 16% of the American G.D.P. First was the banks & auto companies. Next is health care. Just wait until Obama implements Cap & trade, can you say BYE-BYE to the middle class!

[korsow]

LOL that right there is a bias research conducted by the insurance companies to stave off any reform on healthcare.. lol

PS Federal Govt. Already provides healthcare...

[BgMc31]

Very good posts, Kratos, BUT it was provided by an organization with an agenda. So it doesn't hold my credence.

Now do a google search for how detrimental no health care reform will be. I guarantee that doing nothing will cost more than what you posted.

[gixxerboy1]

LOL that right there is a bias research conducted by the insurance companies to stave off any reform on healthcare.. lol

PS Federal Govt. Already provides healthcare...

exactly

[hybrid83]

LOL that right there is a bias research conducted by the insurance companies to stave off any reform on healthcare.. lol

PS Federal Govt. Already provides healthcare...

I agree...You guys let the insurance companies rape you.

A public option will make those insurance company lower there rates. Why would you want to pay more.

Yeah taxes may go up a lil but compare that to what your paying for insurance that probablly won't cover you if you drop a weight on yourself anyways lol.

And for you that think o I have to pay for the poor to have health insurance. You already do with medicare LOL. Thanks I haven't paid a dime for insurance in years. haha

[Mooseman33]

u sir, are a low life scum that lives off others....

[hybrid83]

Your a judgemental no nothing. Dont hate me cause I know how to work the system. Its been working my ass from day one. I bet you have outragious premiums. And half of your medical problems wont be covered while mine will. I know its f'd up. Bottom line the system must change. And it wont be your precious political leaders. I posted what I did because I know longer believe in this system. Check out http://www.watch-movies-online.tv/mo...eist_addendum/ and open your mind my moose friend lol

[Mooseman33]

first off, i will never be friends with any scum that brag about costing me money.

to repeat myself, u sir are scum, the worst kind of scum at that, the kind that lives off others...
glad ur happy knowing u are not man enough to handle shit on ur own..

how u look in the mirror i will never know..u are not a man.

[hybrid83]

hahah...I knew I was getting myself into a pointless debate but I was feeling randy earlier lol.

I was just trying to say how sorry I felt for people who pay insurance companies for there insurance knowing damn well that company will fight you every step of the way if you need them.

I have government healthcare, and whatever is wrong with me they take care of. For free, I dont even pay for prescriptions. dont you want that. The money you will save alone will offset any tax money you may pay. Plus your kids will be guaranteed if you have this. I want you to have this too which is why I'm all for healthcare reform.

I work under the table so I have that option. I know you probably dont have that option but I wish you did. You shouldn't have to morgage your house to heal your kid.

Really man lets stick it to these insurance companies.

If you do want to defend them be my guest but I dont know how you can argue with my logic.

[eliteforce]

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2...332709367.html

For nearly two decades, Wendell Potter led a very comfortable life as a public relations health insurance executive.

However, while flying on a corporate jet and being served lunch on gold-rimmed china with gold-plated cutlery, Potter had an epiphany of sorts.

He realised that the reason why millions of Americans were without health insurance or under-insured was because: "Our Wall Street-driven healthcare system has created one of the most inequitable healthcare systems on the planet."

This June, Potter left his well-paid and secure job at CIGMA, one of the US's largest health insurance companies, and has spoken out in favour of healthcare reform.

'Killing thousands'

With almost 50 million people living without any health insurance and another 25 million people under-insured during a recession, the debate about how to reform the US healthcare system has been underway for many months in Washington and is expected to continue through to the end of the year.

Potter become a whistleblower and is now speaking out against industry abuses on national television news shows.

He does not mince words when telling Al Jazeera that if a strong "public option" is not passed by Congress, healthcare executives would be effectively allowed to continue policies that "literally kill thousands of Americans every year, through denied coverage, as a result of relentless pressure coming from Wall Street".

The public option, currently favoured by the White House, would attempt to insure the uninsured, with the government providing a non-profit, publicly-funded insurance plan.

The public option, however, has not been fully vetted and passed by Congress and Republicans, coupled with a number of Democratic allies, have vowed to prevent it from reaching the desk of Barack Obama, the US president.

Paying more, getting less

About 50 million Americans are without health insurance [GALLO/GETTY]
In the meantime, the US continues to be the country with the highest proportion of uninsured people in the developed world. It also has the distinction of spending a greater portion of its total economic output on healthcare than any other developed country - just over 17 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) last year.

On average, the US spends twice as much as other developed countries on healthcare.

But even though US citizens pay more for healthcare, they get less of it, resulting in a lowly 37th place ranking among healthcare systems in the world, according to a study by the World Health Organization based on quality and fairness.

In terms of the infant mortality rate, a common marker for the overall state of healthcare systems, the US was outranked by all of the following countries according to the CIA's World Factbook: Sweden (3rd), Japan (4th), France (7th), Norway (10th), Germany (14th), Israel (17th), Denmark (21st), United Kingdom (31st), Canada (35th), Taiwan (39th), Italy (41st) and even a few underdeveloped countries, including Cuba (43rd).

How can this paradox of the US spending the most and getting the least for its healthcare occur in the country with the world's largest economic output?

Claudia Schaufan, an Argentine physician and professor of comparative health policies at the University of California in Santa Cruz, explains that the common characteristics of healthcare systems in the developed world have to do with the universality of coverage and the lack of for-profit entities.

The key behind each of these systems is that they all outperform the US in terms of their infant mortality rates, administrative costs, the extent of population with coverage and the proportion of GDP spent on healthcare.

Furthermore, there are no documented instances of citizens going bankrupt because of medical care in these systems while, conversely, some studies have shown as many as 700,000 Americans suffer that fate annually.

'Making a buck'

in depth

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One grouping of healthcare systems can be described as socially insured and multi-payer (Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Israel, Belgium and Austria), another as socially insured and single-payer (Taiwan and Canada), and a third as nationally insured and delivered (United Kingdom, Spain, all of Scandinavia, Italy and Iceland).

Socially insured and multi-payer systems feature health insurance delivered by non-profit insurers. Those who are unemployed or cannot afford to pay for the insurance, receive governmental assistance so that universal coverage is achieved.

Certain multi-payer countries have a wide choice of insurance programmes, as is the case in Germany. When you choose a private, non-profit insurer - Germany has 240 of them - the government pays a portion of the costs based on your income.

Developed countries with one national insurer that is funded publicly - often described as single-payer - have a healthcare system that is delivered by either private (as is the case in Canada) or publicly-run institutions (as is the case in all of Scandinavia).

While these systems differ in their specific characteristics, the similarities are more important, according to Schaufan.

"Everyone has health insurance and there is no significant for-profit aspect in any part of the medical sector ... nobody in these systems 'makes a buck' at the expense of the health of patients," she says.

Learning from others

Taiwan, which spends three times less than the US on healthcare, developed its current healthcare system in the mid-1990s, when the majority of citizens were uninsured and policymakers collectively decided the health system needed to be radically overhauled. However, the Taiwanese looked to other countries to forge their own system.

Asked what the proposed US reforms show in terms of learning from other examples, Naoki Ikegami, a leading Japanese healthcare economics professor, says simply: "Not much, because there has to be a willingness to learn and if anything, US leaders have isolated themselves from learning about other healthcare systems."

Professor Ikegami's co-author on numerous scholarly publications, John Campbell, an American-born political science professor, says: "The reforms being proposed in the US simply do not fix or get at the heart of the problem, which is price containment and unsustainable healthcare costs.

"The US would stand to gain a lot from going to a single-payer system, where costs could easily be contained and controlled."

Failing millions

Protestors say thousands die every year because they are uninsured [GALLO/GETTY]
In terms of for-profit and corporate healthcare interests influencing policy in universally insured systems, however, the situation is quite different.

Campbell says: "Insurance companies have a very small presence here in Japan and simply do not influence policy at all. The exact opposite is the case in the US where they basically dictate policy."

Potter explains that the situation in the US is a far-cry from that in Japan, as a result "of the lobbying strength of the for-profit, special interests in this country".

Consequently, Potter describes current reforms being considered by Congress as little more than "limited" in their scope.

Schaufan is also critical, adding that for most people, the measures being debated in Washington will be little more than "mandates forcing people to take on for-profit-based insurance companies, which already depend upon the government to cleanse itself from having to cover the elderly and the poor, through the popular Medicare and Medicaid programmes".

She believes the US should adopt more fundamental reforms putting it in line with the rest of the developed world that has opted for universal coverage within the scope of non-profit-based and administered systems.

Potter echoes Schaufan's sentiments: "The system has already failed millions of Americans and will continue to fail millions more in the years to come."

Other experts, however, disagree and point out that trying to rid the US of its profit-based system is unrealistic.

Timothy Jost, a healthcare policy expert and law professor at Washington and Lee University, says: "I would like to have world peace, but I just don't think we're going to get rid of a for-profit healthcare system."

He says there are several significant steps Congress can take by passing meaningful reforms, including "the expansion of Medicaid, as all reform bills are currently proposing that Medicaid would be expanded to 133 per cent of the poverty line".

Jost also points to "affordability subsidies, which would take care of a sizable portion of the population and help put limits on cost-sharing, which will cover most of the people who are under-insured".

Cost-sharing transfers much of the burden of paying for healthcare to insured consumers and is a significant reason why many people are under-insured and many others have to declare medical bankruptcy, despite having insurance.

What the public wants

Despite Jost's optimism about some of the reforms under consideration, the public opinion polls suggest a possible disconnect between politicians and the reforms they are proposing and what the public really wants from their healthcare system.

Based on a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, the New York Times reported that, "most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance and said the government could do a better job of holding down healthcare costs than the private sector".

Another recent ABC News/Washington Post poll documented public support for governmental insurance going even farther, as 56 per cent supporting the idea even if it meant running corporate insurers out of business.

What is even clearer than the apparent gulf that exists between public opinion and the limited reforms being considered, however, is that the US stands alone among other developed countries in terms of its profit-driven and industry-dictated healthcare system.

[eliteforce]

whats stands out in that article, that upto 700,000 people in the US are financially ruined every year just because they came down with a health issue, something that doesn't happen in other countries! Thats a major human rights violation imo, a country that has enough money for foreign wars, foreign aid, moon missions, etc. destroys millions of it's peoples lives every year because it refuses to provide a non-corrupt heath care system.

[gigabitbucket]

Kratos, you are the only reason I come to this section.

another great post!

[Kratos]

whats stands out in that article, that upto 700,000 people in the US are financially ruined every year just because they came down with a health issue, something that doesn't happen in other countries! Thats a major human rights violation imo, a country that has enough money for foreign wars, foreign aid, moon missions, etc. destroys millions of it's peoples lives every year because it refuses to provide a non-corrupt heath care system.

The Medical Bankruptcy Myth
By Brett J. Skinner
Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Filed under: Health & Medicine, Economic Policy, Government & Politics, Numbers

There is no evidence to indicate that a government-run healthcare system in the United States will reduce personal bankruptcies.

The debate about American healthcare is being influenced by recent controversial research claiming to show that nearly two-thirds of personal bankruptcies in the United States resulted from uninsured medical expenses or loss of income due to illness. An earlier 2005 edition of this research claimed that just over half of personal bankruptcies were due to these “medical causes.” The authors of these studies, David Himmelstein, Deborah Thorne, Elizabeth Warren, and Steffie Woolhandler, argue that the problem of “medical bankruptcies” would be solved by the adoption of a government-run health insurance system like Canada’s.

The research has been politically persuasive. President Obama himself cited the dubious link between medical expenses and personal bankruptcy as part of his rationale for a massive increase of government involvement in healthcare. “The cost of healthcare now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds,” he declared in March. “By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes.”

A July 28 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee titled, “Is Our Healthcare System Bankrupting Americans?” prominently featured the medical bankruptcy study. More recently, in a USA Today column, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer cited medical bankruptcy to justify their healthcare overhaul efforts.

The idea that large numbers of Americans are declaring bankruptcy due to medical expenses is a myth.Yet the medical bankruptcy study has been soundly refuted by several researchers. This includes critiques published by David Dranove and Michael Millenson in Health Affairs and a working paper by the American Enterprise Institute’s Aparna Mathur. The idea that large numbers of Americans are declaring bankruptcy due to medical expenses is a myth.

Dranove and Millenson critically analyzed the data from the 2005 edition of the medical bankruptcy study. They found that medical spending was a contributing factor in only 17 percent of U.S. bankruptcies. They also reviewed other research, including studies by the Department of Justice, finding that medical debts accounted for only 12 percent to 13 percent of the total debts among American bankruptcy filers who cited medical debt as one of their reasons for bankruptcy.

As for the notion that greater government involvement in health insurance will reduce bankruptcy, it is helpful to compare personal bankruptcy rates in the United States and Canada. Unlike the United States, Canada has a universal, government-run health insurance system. Following the logic of Himmelstein and colleagues, we should therefore expect to observe a lower rate of personal bankruptcy in Canada compared to the United States.

Research on both sides of the border shows that the majority of debt among bankrupt consumers in both Canada and the United States is composed of non-medical expenditures and therefore has little to do with health insurance coverage. Yet the evidence shows that in the only comparable years, personal bankruptcy rates were actually higher in Canada. Personal bankruptcy filings as a percentage of the population were 0.20 percent in the United States during 2006 and 0.27 percent in 2007. In Canada, the numbers are 0.30 percent in both 2006 and 2007. The data are from government sources and defined in similar ways for both countries and cover the time period after the legal reforms to U.S. bankruptcy laws in 2005 and before the onset of the 2008 economic recession.

This is important, because the 2005 reforms produced U.S. legal standards for bankruptcy filing that are now very similar to Canada’s. Before 2005 it was much easier to file for bankruptcy in the United States, making cross-border comparisons prior to the legal changes meaningless. Further, in 2008 the United States was harmed by massive systemic home mortgage defaults that did not occur in Canada because of differences in mortgage lending practices. U.S. mortgage defaults would have been correlated with increased bankruptcy rates. Therefore, Canada-U.S. comparisons in 2008 are not valid because the data is skewed by other policy differences unrelated to health insurance.

Aside from universal single-payer health insurance, there are few other significant health, social, or legal policy differences between the two countries that could be causally linked to bankruptcy rates. Both countries have employment insurance programs that provide income support in the event of job loss. In fact, unemployment occurs with roughly similar frequency among Canadians and Americans. National unemployment rates in 2007 were 5.3 percent in Canada versus 4.6 percent in the United States.

Researchers found that medical spending was a contributing factor in only 17 percent of U.S. bankruptcies.Drug insurance is also structured almost identically, so exposure to drug costs is similar in both countries. While the entire Canadian population is universally eligible for publicly funded insurance for hospital and physician services, only about one-third of the Canadian population is publicly insured for prescription drugs. In Canada, as in the United States, low-income people, disabled populations, and seniors are eligible for separate publicly funded drug programs, while most employed people obtain drug insurance as a benefit of employment, and the rest of the population pays cash.

Access to medical care for people who experience long-term unemployment, disability from illness, and chronic low-income status is also practically the same in both countries, being facilitated by non-profit, publicly funded community health centers and public programs such as Medicaid in the United States and government-run systems in Canada.

The truth is that the majority of debt among bankrupt consumers in both Canada and the United States is comprised of non-medical expenditures and therefore has little to do with health insurance coverage.

On the rare occasion that medical debts do partially contribute to bankruptcy, they likely accumulate from patients’ demands for the kinds of expensive, cutting-edge or end-of-life treatments that would never be covered by government insurance anyway. It is a fact that many of these same types of expensive treatments are increasingly not insured by government healthcare in Canada.

Indeed, if we define medical bankruptcies the way Himmelstein and colleagues did for their study in the United States, we find such bankruptcies also occur in Canada. Survey research commissioned by the Canadian government found that despite having a government-run health system, medical reasons (including uninsured expenses), were cited as the primary cause of bankruptcy by approximately 15 percent of bankrupt Canadian seniors (55 years of age and older).

There is no objective evidence to indicate that a government-run health care system in the United States will reduce personal bankruptcies. The U.S.-Canada comparative analysis strongly suggests that bankruptcy statistics are being exaggerated and distorted for political reasons.

Brett J. Skinner is director of bio-pharma, health, and insurance policy at the Fraser Institute and is the primary author of a recently published study, "Health Insurance and Bankruptcy Rates in Canada and the United States." He lives in Toronto.

http://www.american.com/archive/2009...ankruptcy-myth

[Kratos]

Very good posts, Kratos, BUT it was provided by an organization with an agenda. So it doesn't hold my credence.

Now do a google search for how detrimental no health care reform will be. I guarantee that doing nothing will cost more than what you posted.

The study was commisioned by the insurance companies but it was conducted independently by PWC.

Critics of the study claim variables were left out making for the bias of the study. Also they completely discredit it because of who paid for it. This is not enough to prove the study is invalid.

What is enough then...commission a study where all variables are used that proves much different numbers will be arived at. Seeing that there is no pro-health reform cost study, we can either assume they chose not to bother doing one for such a massive program (meaning they're acting on total faith that it will work and not facts), or they did a study and it didn't turn out the way they liked, so it was burried.

[eliteforce]

Thats an article that says health care expenses bankrupting americans is a 'myth' it sights 'studies' by the conservative anti-reform american enterprise institute which it describes as 'several researchers' but then admits that health care costs were a factor in 17% of bankruptcies..

first of all not all people that are financially ruined declare bankruptcy, some of them just get thrown out of their place that they rent or lose all the money that they had saved, bankruptcies are more generally used by middleclass or rich people not the poor, what good does it do if your poor to go fill out a bunch of paperwork at the courthouse for another fee and waste your time, your credit is already ruined(assuming you even had any) and you don't own a house that can be saved by bankruptcy.

the reality is that in america if you get a serious illness, even if your insured with one of these lousy half ass hmos that your employer provides or whatever-your gonna get hit by co-payment, co-payment, co-payment, co-payment..everytime you go in for treatment; if your not insured then your really screwed and you'll probably wind up dead or just suffering with a bad quality of life..thats where that 700,000 figure on the aljazeera article comes from.. whereas in another developed country you just go to the doctor and get the treatment, it might not be the very best but it works and the money you had saved should be left intact for your retirement.

[thegodfather]

Very good posts, Kratos, BUT it was provided by an organization with an agenda. So it doesn't hold my credence.

Now do a google search for how detrimental no health care reform will be. I guarantee that doing nothing will cost more than what you posted.

Please name for me an organization that does not have an agenda? Name ONE. You won't be able to. There is no such thing as a completely objectionable study or agency. All agencies, all study's carry bias or have a chance at being biased.

Your statement is as ridiculous as saying "It was on Fox news therefore it means nothing and is completely false." When in actuality, Fox does report on stories which are true, but because at times they push a certain point of view people discredit everything which is on their network. It is ridiculous, and does not mean that the study is not accurate, the only way to know whether ANY study is accurate is to examine the conditions under which it was conducted, etc.

[TITANIUM]

This is killing my sealand thread!LOL

The health care system is obviously broken.

It will stay broken even with reform.

It will cost money either way, that you can bank on.

We'll just have to see what new can of worms this reform opens.

But I surmise it will have just as many faults as the last previous one.

And will cost the tax payers more money.

It's all "slight of hand" my friends.

Best

T

[Kratos]

Thats an article that says health care expenses bankrupting americans is a 'myth' it sights 'studies' by the conservative anti-reform american enterprise institute which it describes as 'several researchers' .

the most recent data (2006 and 2007) shows that personal
bankruptcy rates are actually higher in Canada (.30% for both
years) than in the United States (.20% and .27%).

[thegodfather]

This is killing my sealand thread!LOL

The health care system is obviously broken.

It will stay broken even with reform.

The best reform we can do is to deregulate the entire industry and allow the free market to bring costs down and push quality up.

[inheritmylife]

The best reform we can do is to deregulate the entire industry and allow the free market to bring costs down and push quality up.

But..but...but...that's what America is. A free market system right?

[hybrid83]

The best reform we can do is to deregulate the entire industry and allow the free market to bring costs down and push quality up.

Are you serious!!!! The health insurance industry is the most unregulated industry out there. That is whats been causing all the problems!!!

Look to many people get caught up in, the "I dont wanna pay for sick poor people". But most of the reform needed is for middle class that have insurance. This insurance however is failing them. Fighting to deny people at every turn, leaving alot of people bankrupt.

So how do we fix this. The most obvious way would be to enact laws, that would make insurance companies compete. Like I said before they can basically all walk in a room right now and set there prices, and that aint right.

Unfortunately the insurance companies have tons of money to lobby congress. so that type of reform isn't going to happen.

So if the best they can do is create a public option to force competition, then we should at least try it. And it just might fail as well.

I honestly dont like arguing this issue, because its just one symptom of our f'd up government. We have major structural issues, that have to be addressed by changing everything. It's the 21st century and were living like were in the stone age.

[Kratos]

Are you serious!!!! The health insurance industry is the most unregulated industry out there. That is whats been causing all the problems!!!

Look to many people get caught up in, the "I dont wanna pay for sick poor people". But most of the reform needed is for middle class that have insurance. This insurance however is failing them. Fighting to deny people at every turn, leaving alot of people bankrupt.

So how do we fix this. The most obvious way would be to enact laws, that would make insurance companies compete. Like I said before they can basically all walk in a room right now and set there prices, and that aint right.

Unfortunately the insurance companies have tons of money to lobby congress. so that type of reform isn't going to happen.

So if the best they can do is create a public option to force competition, then we should at least try it. And it just might fail as well.

I honestly dont like arguing this issue, because its just one symptom of our f'd up government. We have major structural issues, that have to be addressed by changing everything. It's the 21st century and were living like were in the stone age.

hahaha, can you please site a reference to the insurance industry being the most unregulated. Why is it that there are 85 more profitable industry's to be in. Health insurance with it's megar profitability at 3.2% average profit margins is hardly a non-competitive enviroment. Laws don't create competition. You make things up like your boy Michael Moore.

[TITANIUM]

hahaha, can you please site a reference to the insurance industry being the most unregulated. Why is it that there are 85 more profitable industry's to be in. Health insurance with it's megar profitability at 3.2% average profit margins is hardly a non-competitive enviroment. Laws don't create competition. You make things up like your boy Michael Moore.

Like I said, Shit Head!!!LOL........................................ .................................................. ................

Best

T

[thegodfather]

Are you serious!!!! The health insurance industry is the most unregulated industry out there. That is whats been causing all the problems!!!

This is untrue. For one, health insurers are prohibited (regulated) from selling policies across state lines, greatly reducing the amount of competition, and thus the amount of options that private citizens have in each state. If we allowed (deregulated) health insurance companies to sell policies nationwide, it would go a great way to increasing competition substantially, and thus bringing costs down.

In addition, government sponsored insurers such as the HMO's and acts like ERISA, caused artificial manipulations of the health care market, which advantaged the HMO's. This contributes to the raise in prices, and the distortions in the market.

Furthermore, programs like Medicare and Medicaid are price fixers, they set reimbursement rates artificially low, lower than what the market is able to bear. The deleterious effect that this has on health care is seen in the form of doctors having to see twice as many patients in a given period of time in order to maintain their income. Every doctor is required to see about 1 patient every 7.5 minutes, and this has serious consequences for patient outcomes and quality of care. In addition, doctors/hospitals must make up their lost income from accepting low Medicare/caid reimbursements by charging everyone else more money for the same procedures. This means that the price point for cash services is now artificially inflated due to the market distortion caused by Medicare/Medicaid programs. Essentially, cash services become out of reach for the majority of the population.



Look to many people get caught up in, the "I dont wanna pay for sick poor people". But most of the reform needed is for middle class that have insurance. This insurance however is failing them. Fighting to deny people at every turn, leaving alot of people bankrupt.

So how do we fix this. The most obvious way would be to enact laws, that would make insurance companies compete. Like I said before they can basically all walk in a room right now and set there prices, and that aint right.

Enacting laws is actually the worst thing that we can do. One example is the law which prohibits health care providers from advertising their prices. One essential component to a free market is price transparency. Without price transparency it is impossible for doctors & hospitals to compete with one another. It prevents the patient from being able to shop around for the best deal on a given procedure. For example if you need a hip replacement, you have absolutely no way to find out which hospital or doctor can give you the best rate for that hip replacement. This law also contributes to waste, because there is no incentive to shop around, patients treat their health care costs as an all you can eat buffet, that their insurance companies pick up the tab for. So you can see how this "law" that was enacted contributes to the problem of waste and the free rider scenario.

Unfortunately the insurance companies have tons of money to lobby congress. so that type of reform isn't going to happen.

So if the best they can do is create a public option to force competition, then we should at least try it. And it just might fail as well.

I honestly dont like arguing this issue, because its just one symptom of our f'd up government. We have major structural issues, that have to be addressed by changing everything. It's the 21st century and were living like were in the stone age.

You, like most other Americans, have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but are under the impression that you do. Of course it's not your fault, I'm sure that you're just parroting the things that you hear from the liberal mainstream media, but perhaps you should take some time to read these things called "books," or use your internet search engine to read these other things called "peer reviewed research," and you might actually have a clue about what you're talking about. You can refer to my comments in bold above for your education on health care policy.

[OCTOBER-2009]

Thank you "thegodfather" for shedding light on this subject & destroying these liberal arguments with facts and logic. You should run for office my friend.

[Kratos]

Thank you "thegodfather" for shedding light on this subject & destroying these liberal arguments with facts and logic. You should run for office my friend.

liberilism is a disease with no cure, you can only prevent the spread