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JimR-OCDS
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You made the post and it’s your burden to explain what you meant if misunderstood, which it certainly was
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JanR
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If the government finances it, the government will set the rules, and some of those might not be fair.
I’ve heard at least one of those candidates advocate totally eliminating private insurance, which means that nobody would be allowed to privately pay for services.
I think it was Bloomberg who mentioned denying treatment to someone 95 years old who is chronically ill. Hey, ever hear of QUALITY of life, as well as quantity of years? He seems not to care about that. It also shows his attitude that he doesn’t value human life beyond a certain number of years.
What people don’t realize is that government financed healthcare IS government controlled healthcare, and the things I’ve warned about COULD happen.
I’ve heard at least one of those candidates advocate totally eliminating private insurance, which means that nobody would be allowed to privately pay for services.
I think it was Bloomberg who mentioned denying treatment to someone 95 years old who is chronically ill. Hey, ever hear of QUALITY of life, as well as quantity of years? He seems not to care about that. It also shows his attitude that he doesn’t value human life beyond a certain number of years.
What people don’t realize is that government financed healthcare IS government controlled healthcare, and the things I’ve warned about COULD happen.
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JanR
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Right now, we still have the freedom to bypass Obamacare and still use private insurance, if we choose. The mandate portion has been repealed. Right now, we still can have choices. For now …
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JanR
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What is your point? That people over 65 shouldn’t continue living just because most of them don’t? And that’s not so true, anymore, either. People are living longer and longer these days. A lot more folks are living well beyond age 65.
So, what are you trying to say?
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StudentMI
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To describe choosing among corporate behemoth monopolists as freedom is wrong. What we need is freedom in health care.
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Ghosty1981
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The government is at least publicly accountable through the political process and subject to disclosure, whereas private insurance companies can hide their processes for determining eligibility and determining reimbursement rates.
Eliminating private insurance has nothing to do with eliminating private payment for treatment. The very fact that we as a society talk about third-party fpr_profit insurance companies as the primary means of paying for direct service is a major part of the problem here.
Private insurance companies routinely deny services to such people. They can’t profit by writing checks for every possible treatment; their bottom line for their shareholders is determined by how many claims they can reasonably deny.
The fact that you think buying private insurance is bypassing Obamacare indicates that you don’t understand what Obamacare actually is/was. The ACA/Obamacare is not a service, it is a collection of laws to force people to buy private insurance while imposing certain limits on what insurance companies can charge and who they can deny coverage to. No one “signs up” for Obamacare.
Peace and God bless!
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Ghosty1981
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Exactly, and this is precisely why a Medicare-for-All plan would give the most freedom for regular folks. Right now, thanks to the insurance plan provided by my workplace, I do not have the freedom to choose my doctor without severe financial penalty. I must go to the in-network providers or pay exorbitant costs on top of my monthly premiums, costs that would not apply to my annual deductible. I would then still have to have this private company approve my treatments and tests.
Medicare-for-All would mean I could finally pick my own provider and still have to option to privately pay for a procedure that was denied coverage. With one entity writing the checks the providers would also be free to accept all patients that they wanted to, as they would not have to negotiate different reimbursement rates with different third-party insurers.
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StudentMI
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Sorry to say I wasn’t agreeing with medicare for all. I’m talking about a market based, heavily deregulated system. The health care crisis is a case of artificial scarcity. And get rid of patents on medicines while we’re at it.
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Ghosty1981
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The problem is that there is no need for a health insurance market as we have in the United States. Adding a middle-man between a customer and a service provider is not a sensible market, it is a parasitic one.
Furthermore, health care is not a service that lends itself to typical market analysis; one can’t shop for colon surgery the way one shops for apples or even a car mechanic’s services. It is not within the capacity of the average person, or even the average healthcare professional (myself included) to make informed purchasing decisions regarding medical treatment options even in non-emergency situations. There is no common market to judge the relative costs and benefits of various cancer treatments, and even medical professionals aren’t well-informed enough outside of their specialties to make a proper cost-benefit analysis of treatment options. Add in the unpredictability of need and potentially high (read bankrupting) costs of a given necessary service and you have a “market” that doesn’t even remotely conform to typical market analytics.
Since health is a public and social, not merely private, good, and the individual can’t possibly navigate the healthcare market in a free and rational manner, it makes much more sense for the payment side to be handled publicly just as other public goods, such as road maintenance and sewage treatment are handled. Market elements such as the selection of one’s provider and the ability to privately pay for additional services would be best maintained under a Medicare-for-All model rather than an unregulated “free” healthcare market.
Peace and God bless!
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StudentMI
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I don’t know where you got the idea that health care “doesn’t lend itself to market analysis.” Of course it does. As for doctor’s performing cost benefit analysis, that’s why they hire analysts. The average person would buy insurance which would navigate it for them. You make the mistake of thinking if health care were market based, the individual would have to navigate it completely on his own.
And please don’t use the cliche that we’ve tried free market health care before and it didn’t work.
And please don’t use the cliche that we’ve tried free market health care before and it didn’t work.
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Ghosty1981
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The actual consumer of the service is not able to make informed decisions about the service, so the service is not open to rational consideration. A health insurance company has a fundamentally different relationship with the service being provided, and so is basing its analysis on different factors than the actual consumer of the service. The insurance agency does not operate as an advocate for the insured, and indeed can not act in such a manner if it is to be financially responsible to its share-holders. Insurance agencies are fundamentally financial institutions, not patients, and therefore can not approach the healthcare market as a patient and provider would.
For-profit health insurance companies have a parasitic role in relation to both the consumer/patient and the provider, and this is a fact that can’t be worked around as it is inherent to their very design and operation. Insurance companies don’t get colon cancer, and they are not in the business of acting as an ombudsman or advocate for their clients. They pay providers from a pool of money collected from a group of clients, with the aim of making more money than they ultimately pay out in claims.
What’s more, an open market of health insurers greatly increases the complexity and costs of actually providing health care. A provider, whether individually or as a company, must have a bloated administrative costs for navigating the various insurers and negotiating costs for services. Again keep in mind that these costs are not being negotiated with the actual consumer, nor are the cost factors being considered necessarily based on the actual well-being of the consumer, but rather on the financial cost/return on investment to the insurance company. So the provider adds an administrative cost and puts a further barrier in their relationship with their actual patient, and for what? What benefit does this added burden actually serve to the provider and the consumer? This is merely a parasitic, financial interloper into a very intimate relationship, an interloper that also destabilizes and complicates any kind of free market analysis that might be possible between the actual principle actors the relationship.
Remember, health insurance companies do not provide analysis services for their customers, they provide financial coverage through pooling risk and finances, cutting costs, limiting reimbursement, and hedging in provider networks for ease of negotiating payment. They are not health advocates beholden to patients in any way, but rather profit-driven financial entities beholden to their shareholders who expect and deserve growth on their investment.
Peace and God bless!
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JimG
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StudentMI
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“Parasitic…” “Interloper…”
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tafan2
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If you bypass Obamacare, I suspect your idea of switching insurance when you current company won’t cover a procedure will fail utterly.
All if your scenarios in response to @StudentMI will fail utterly.
All if your scenarios in response to @StudentMI will fail utterly.
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tafan2
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My point is very simple, you say that government should never be the entity making such life and death decisions, yet that us the case for almost everyone over the age of 65 (it’s called Medicare). Why the fearmingeting about death panels.
There are good arguments for not going towards an “Medicare for all” type system. You have made none of them.
There are also good arguments for going to a Medicare for all type system, BTW.
What we have now is woefully broken. Instead of fear mongering about so called death panels, we should focus on arguments much more substantive.
There are good arguments for not going towards an “Medicare for all” type system. You have made none of them.
There are also good arguments for going to a Medicare for all type system, BTW.
What we have now is woefully broken. Instead of fear mongering about so called death panels, we should focus on arguments much more substantive.
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Crocus
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it’s true. Why are people averse to consider this?Everyone should print this out and send to their representative.
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tafan2
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Really well written and excellent points.
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Ghosty1981
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Do you have a substantive point? These are unpleasant terms, but I think they accurately reflect the role of health insurance companies from the perspective of the healthcare provider/patient relationship.
Health insurance is designed for financial risk management, not the provision of health care, hence it is called “insurance” and not health service. Due to the structure of U.S. healthcare the insurance industry is put in the midst of almost every healthcare provision relationship despite the fact that the agencies themselves can not be fundamentally geared towards the provision of healthcare. This is a parasitic relationship on health care provision, but it needn’t be. The problem is that the actual role of health insurance companies goes far beyond their design and purpose, turning what should be a risk-management service into the primary determiner of healthcare costs and service rationing.
If there are terms you would prefer then I’ll consider them, but as it stands I think these I’ve used accurately reflect the role of health insurance companies in our country today.
Peace and God bless!
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StudentMI
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See this was my point. The reason healthcare is so expensive in this country is the collusion between state and industry creating an oligopolistic environment in which price reducing competition is next to impossible. It is also a violation of the principle of subsidiarity I would argue.
It is not a case of market failure as the market hasn’t been allowed to operate in a climate of competition unhampered by the state and corporate behemoths who work with the state.
The reason I pointed out those words was the emotive logic you were using was showing. You may not think healthcare is a right but you certainly see it as a public good. That is debatable, not settled.
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