HealtchCare Round II, Anybody Interested?

[Oak Tree]

Why not have new Insurance Companies provide what people want?

 

Primarily because what people want is to pay a low fixed cost even if they are likely to experience much higher expenses. There aren't a lot of entrepreneurs looking to get into the business of selling really expensive things at a low price.

 

Is government intrusion the best way to handle this?

 

How else would you propose that people spread the expenses and risk? If you have a known condition, why would any company choose to take you on? The free market could deal with this in a variety of ways - with the current way being that large employers can spread the expenses across all of their employees and this works reasonably well for them. It does not work well for small companies, self-employed, unemployed, or retired people. So long as healthy people can opt out (and they do opt out, even if they don't really want to), you end up in a spiral.

 

I think it is reasonable to require everyone to have some form of health insurance. The government already forces me to buy all kinds of things I may not want to buy - they take my money and give me police protection, free access to state parks, access to health clinics, some marvelous government web sites, free art museums, etc.

 

I actually think that private enterprise could do better than the government at providing a lot of these things. How is requiring me to buy a product any (ethically) different than taking my tax money and giving me access to a similar product?

 

[Beavah]

Yah, and of course it's very hard for a startup to break into a market with existing pricing structures by monopolistic large players, eh? Insurance companies being exempt from da anti-trust statutes and all.

 

It's not the same thing as manufacturing, eh? If yeh build a better mousetrap, people will come and buy it from yeh as a small outfit, helpin you to grow. At least until some big company with an overbroad patent on "any device used to kill, trap, or isolate rodents under 20 lbs" sues you into oblivion for violating their "intellectual property."

 

If yeh offer service to more needy folks whose expenses are higher, yeh just aid the big players rather than compete against 'em. They can push off their high risk clients on you while continuin' to skim the low-risk clients for themselves. And yeh aren't big enough to force the changes in billing practice or caregiver structure or tort reform that make for real savings.

 

In short, it's a systemic problem, which needs to be addressed systemically.

[JoeBob]

From the New England Journal Of Medicine:

"The Medicus Firm... conducted a survey of ...1,195 physicians from various specialties and career levels. Nearly one-third of physicians responding to the survey indicated that they will want to leave medical practice after health reform is implemented."

 

What happens when you add 30 million more patients to an already tight-as-a-tick health care system and the reduce the number of doctors by 1/3 ?

 

Improved access?

Lower costs?

Better quality?

 

How about rationing?

[OldGreyEagle]

Excellent point JoeBob, but as you say since the system is "tight as a tick", maybe it coulsd use some changes...

 

Then again if its the ego centric "I am closer to God than you can imagine.. wait I am God" physicians that leave, Healthcare may be better off. Ithasnt been that long since I was a Director of a Hospital Dept and had a physician tell me that one of my employee had to come off nights and work days as he was having an affair with her and her schedule made things inconvenient for their trysting

 

BTW, did I ever tell you I have a strong dislike of physicians? The ones who havent been told "no" in such a long time they expect the world to revolve around them? The total jerks who only serve themselves and have no regard for the disasters they leave behind? Think I am exagerating? I ask any pne who works with Doctors to tell me I am wrong, That they dont have absoltely nuts doctors who menance employees and are dangers to the publicc. People think Dr House is funny, he is tame by the standards I have seen

 

There is plenty of weeding out to be done in the physician ranks, unfrortunatley, I dont know where the replacements will come from, so its a concern I wish I didnt have to worry about(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

[Brian85]

Excellent OGE.

 

It is interesting that you have now confirmed my suspicions that "doctors" are the good guys and "physicians" are the bad guys.

 

I haven't had time to read the entire thread, but I will have to ask the opinion of all about which group is worse: the insured or the insurers? I have been on active duty for over twenty years and have never had to ask for medical care. It is just one of those things that was there, like a galley. As I have aged, I am beginning to wonder though, how much have I been paying into support the medical program. I have begun asking how much my appointments are costing. My annual PHA is coming around, so I will ask what the cost to the government will be for that trip to medical.

I have also begun to agree with one of my old buddies that used to say you get what you pay for. He was also proud of the phrase, it is not good medical, it is free medical.