If we Socialize Medicine, can we get rid of Insurance Companies?

[lynn63]

Wellpoint, Unitied Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna and Humana are not going anywhere. They have Medicaid contracts with most states to insure their poor. These insurance companies insure most of the population and they are not going to allow a one payer system unless one of them manages to put the others from being able to compete with them.

They all bought our politicians and Obamacare is exactly what they have been waiting for.

 

[dblack]

Wellpoint, Unitied Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna and Humana are not going anywhere. They have Medicaid contracts with most states to insure their poor. These insurance companies insure most of the population and they are not going to allow a one payer system unless one of them manages to put the others from being able to compete with them.

They all bought our politicians and Obamacare is exactly what they have been waiting for.

QfT

 

[LoneLaugher]

Wellpoint, Unitied Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna and Humana are not going anywhere. They have Medicaid contracts with most states to insure their poor. These insurance companies insure most of the population and they are not going to allow a one payer system unless one of them manages to put the others from being able to compete with them.

They all bought our politicians and Obamacare is exactly what they have been waiting for.

Thus, there is opposition to Obamacare from hardcore liberals and a lukewarm reception of it from moderate ones. It is too small a step......but it is a step.

 

[iaanhayden]

The functions of medicine are basically twofold: administra*tion of known pharmaceuticals and tech*niques, and study. We arrive in communicate with the profession through the previous, but advancement occurs only through the latter.’ So*cialized medicine would origin a shifting of emphasis from study to general upkeep.

 

[editec]

I was thinking about it this morning.

If the government is in the process of socializing medicine and making it available to everybody, wouldn't that eliminate the need for insurance companies?

I mean, why would there even be any? They don't provide any medical service. If anything they would only slow things down. And I'd also assume they'd artificially drive the cost of healthcare up, as they would essentially be making profits without offering any real value. And they do make quite a bit of profit.

Wouldn't this also make the cost of healthcare much cheaper?

I understand this idea is a bit radical, especially for a conservative like myself. But as a fiscal conservative I'm also against waste and inefficiency. Hence, medical insurance companies came to mind.

What are your thoughts?

You DO not understand the difference between socialized MEDICINE and socialized health care insurance, don't you?

This statement

If the government is in the process of socializing medicine...

suggests that you do not.

But yes, if the US socialized health care insurance that would (and it ought to be our goal to) make private HC insurance a thing of the past.


Not the difference?

One socializes the health care PROVIDERS making HC an industry owned by government

The other socializes the HS INSURANCE industry and makes that industry part of the government.

There is a world of difference between those two approaches.

 

[dblack]

Wellpoint, Unitied Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna and Humana are not going anywhere. They have Medicaid contracts with most states to insure their poor. These insurance companies insure most of the population and they are not going to allow a one payer system unless one of them manages to put the others from being able to compete with them.

They all bought our politicians and Obamacare is exactly what they have been waiting for.

Thus, there is opposition to Obamacare from hardcore liberals and a lukewarm reception of it from moderate ones. It is too small a step......but it is a step.

It's a step backwards.

 

[JoeNormal]

I was thinking about it this morning.

If the government is in the process of socializing medicine and making it available to everybody, wouldn't that eliminate the need for insurance companies?

I mean, why would there even be any? They don't provide any medical service. If anything they would only slow things down. And I'd also assume they'd artificially drive the cost of healthcare up, as they would essentially be making profits without offering any real value. And they do make quite a bit of profit.

Wouldn't this also make the cost of healthcare much cheaper?

I understand this idea is a bit radical, especially for a conservative like myself. But as a fiscal conservative I'm also against waste and inefficiency. Hence, medical insurance companies came to mind.

What are your thoughts?

Why that's what Obama Prefers!!! Obama has said: "I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program."Obama's words exactly!!
which means that you and he ...
prefer to destroy the 1,300 health insurance companies
that pay $100 billion a YEAR in Federal/State/Local taxes AND local property taxes on their office buildings!
You and Obama prefer to put out of work the 400,000 people that work in the health insurance companies!"
YOU and Obama prefer to pay out over 99 weeks at $300/week -- $11.8 billion in unemployment benefits.
You and Obama prefer to make up out of YOUR tax payments
400,000 employees at $40,000/year SS/Medicare payments of @15.3% paid by employer/employee or $2.4 billion a year paid into Federal govt.

All in in you and Obama prefer that local property taxes will increase because non-profits i.e. govt. don't pay property taxes!

All in all you and Obama prefer to destroy federal tax on dividends paid out to those evil money grubbing pension funds, 401Ks,etc. based on the reality that
the AVERAGE insurance company's net profit BEFORE TAXES is 4.6%?

You are in favor OF THAT but you won't tax LAWYERS 10% of their $200 billion a year income to be used to pay the premium on the truly 4 million uninsured..
(AGAIN you don't seem to handle simple math:
10 million Obama counts as "uninsured" NOT CITIZENS! 14 million he counts as uninsured. Covered already by Medicaid and the biggest phoniest lie
18 million people who pay out of their OwN pocket annually less then $1,000 for health services refuse employer insurance and there fore counted as "uninsured" falsely!
These 18 million are under 34 and make over $50K and they are NOT happy about buying health insurance!
That leaves 4 million truly uninsured that every time they go to the hospital all they need to is show they are registered as a member of the Uninsured Health Insurance Co.!
Hospitals send claims and not allowed to charge then Medicare/insurance companies sometimes 6,000% markups because of EMTALA!!!

But you want the ambulance chasing lawyers to continue putting $850 billion a year in defensive medicine.. (BY FAR the biggest cost driver in insurance premiums/Medicare)
all because the experts i.e. physicians FEAR BEING SUED!
And your solution is to put insurance companies out of business.. causing $100 billion a year in lost tax revenue, putting 400,000 people out of work who'll collect $11 billion?

That's your solution???

Obama also said he wants companies to go bankrupt!!!
"if somebody wants to build coal utility plant it’s just that it will bankrupt them,![/I][/B][/COLOR]"
Why would ANY president want any business to go bankrupt?

And he went on to say: “Under my plan....electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."
Why would ANY president want electricity rates to skyrocket???

D) Obama said "I'd like higher gas prices.."
WHAT? A president WANTS YOU to pay HIGHER gas prices?

I mean seriously... YOU want health insurance companies to go out of business and in doing so stop paying $100 billion in state taxes, federal taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, payroll taxes, workers compensation taxes and unemployment taxes.?

See I don't think YOU much less Obama KNOW HOW MUCH in TAXES businesses pay!

Holy crap, could you be any more misguided? That's like saying we shouldn't want to eliminate organized crime because of the employment it provides.

 

[JoeNormal]

My Medicare Advantage plan threw in dental care as an incentive to get my business. However, I live 30 miles from the Mexican border, and it is cheaper for me to have dental work down there at full price than it would be just to pay the deductible under my dental plan in the US (which only has two dentists who are under contract within 40 miles of where I live). For the most part, the RX costs to me are finally almost reasonable enough for me to stop buying scripts in Mexico. Perhaps next year...

So let me get this straight, you worked a fucked up system for long enough to retire and now you cover your medical expenses by going to Mexico? You don't sound like an ex-republican to me.