Health Care Endgame: Activate the Public Option

[Flaylo]

Sanjay Sanghoee: Health Care Endgame: Activate the Public Option

The insurance business is simple. Maximum premiums, minimum payouts. In order for this to work, the insurance companies need pricing power, which they have plenty of in our oligopolistic system. A handful of large insurance carriers rule the day and are able to charge consumers whatever they want as premiums. Not only that, but on the coverage side, they march in lock-step to exclude as many conditions and treatments as they can get away with. In this type of raw capitalist hell, sick Americans are an afterthought.

The current health care law tries its best to rein in such opportunism, but the structure it uses to do that is flawed. The individual mandate requiring people to buy health insurance might have gotten insurers to agree to cover pre-existing conditions (amongst other things), but it will not stop them from increasing premiums or passing on costs to consumers in other ways. Anything that insurance companies accept from the government as incentive for good behavior will be offset by some other form of exploitation: for every pre-existing condition they cover, they will deny more claims elsewhere; for every new treatment they pay for, they will decrease the accepted industry scale for something else, making it impossible for hospitals and doctors to provide that service without suffering a loss. As long as Americans have to depend on private insurance companies for their health care needs, they will remain at their mercy.

The only surefire solution to this problem is the public option. Insurance companies may not care about the welfare of their customers but they do have to care about competition -- not the illusory competition that they pretend to have with their partners-in-crime peers but with the real, bare-knuckled competition they will face from a large public sector juggernaut.

Competition is supposed to be key in capitalism, so why are the super capitalist Repugs rejecting the public option? If most people really hate government and don't want government because its the devil the private sector insurance companies shouldn't worry about the "devilish" public option,

 

[Lakhota]

Amen!

 

[Gremlin-USA]

It is not all the Insurance Companies Fault, for instance:

I chose my policy and it bit me I chooses a high deductible and after my Surgery they paid 100% as agreed in my contract. My deductible and copay is 5,000.00, but my monthly Insurance is less than 150.00 per month for male and over 50.

The pricing I have seen for my age under the Obama Plan will be over 400.00 per month and will have a 2,000.00 deductible and 20% copay.... this is not a better Policy by any means and will become forced on everyone in a few years.

The problem was and is the Hospitals, I had a gall bladder removed, an outpatient surgery that lasted 35 minutes, I checked into the Hospital at 9am and left by 12:15, this included of course all the time to fill out paperwork, etc.

The Bill was over 21,000.00 ... for 3.5 hours?

That is not the Insurance companies fault. We need regulation about Gouging....... Hospitals and Healtcare Profession in general are the ones Ripping the People off not the Insurance Companies.......

Having Government force people to buy Insurance will only cause the Gouging of Prices by Hospitals and Healtcare in General, it will not reduce prices, why would anyone reduce prices when they have the market cornered? Does your Cable Company or Power Company ever reduce prices, no.... not until they have competition.

Forcing everyone to have Government Mandated Insurance without Price Gouging Rules only leads to higher Prices.......

.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Sanjay Sanghoee: Health Care Endgame: Activate the Public Option

The insurance business is simple. Maximum premiums, minimum payouts. In order for this to work, the insurance companies need pricing power, which they have plenty of in our oligopolistic system. A handful of large insurance carriers rule the day and are able to charge consumers whatever they want as premiums. Not only that, but on the coverage side, they march in lock-step to exclude as many conditions and treatments as they can get away with. In this type of raw capitalist hell, sick Americans are an afterthought.

The current health care law tries its best to rein in such opportunism, but the structure it uses to do that is flawed. The individual mandate requiring people to buy health insurance might have gotten insurers to agree to cover pre-existing conditions (amongst other things), but it will not stop them from increasing premiums or passing on costs to consumers in other ways. Anything that insurance companies accept from the government as incentive for good behavior will be offset by some other form of exploitation: for every pre-existing condition they cover, they will deny more claims elsewhere; for every new treatment they pay for, they will decrease the accepted industry scale for something else, making it impossible for hospitals and doctors to provide that service without suffering a loss. As long as Americans have to depend on private insurance companies for their health care needs, they will remain at their mercy.

The only surefire solution to this problem is the public option. Insurance companies may not care about the welfare of their customers but they do have to care about competition -- not the illusory competition that they pretend to have with their partners-in-crime peers but with the real, bare-knuckled competition they will face from a large public sector juggernaut.

Competition is supposed to be key in capitalism, so why are the super capitalist Repugs rejecting the public option? If most people really hate government and don't want government because its the devil the private sector insurance companies shouldn't worry about the "devilish" public option,

Another retard link from the Huff 'n Puff Compost?

 

[Claudette]

Govt doesn't need to be in the HC game at all.

Anything the Govt touches turns into an expensive clusterfuck.

Let the insurance companies compete against each other in every state in the Union. Competition will bring prices down. Not the Govt.