Who should provide health insurance: Private biz? Govt? Neither?

[DiamondDave]

There should be no profit motive involved. Insurance companies exist to make money. They need to be taken out of the equation.

So the power motive of government, government officials, and government agencies is the answer???


Hardly

 

[DiamondDave]

There should be no profit motive involved. Insurance companies exist to make money. They need to be taken out of the equation.

Government runs things best. Look at the Post Office vs FedEx

OK.

What is your point?

The post office is self funded and does an outstanding job. Irreplaceable in many cases.

You lose.

No.. the USED to be self funded.. now they are a drain and subsidized by the tax fund

 

[DiamondDave]

OP: all of the above, with help from gov't if they can't afford it. Medicaid with preventive care and low cost clinics is cheaper for the country and the health system than ER care.

Masscare and every other modern country prove Pub fear mongering is total BS for the dupes as always. Our Pub default health "system" is a ridiculously overpriced and cruel disaster for our economy.

The most cruel part is that we already pay more than enough to give every single person in the US excellent health care.

Instead, we've been stuck with the completely unAmerican ans antiAmerican socialist metals. And, ignorant rw's will fight against having to pay their way.

It's the rw's who want Socialism and ts the rw's who lie about it.

WE pay?? No.. a growing number of people/citizens DO NOT PAY

 

[gwennie]

There should be no profit motive involved. Insurance companies exist to make money. They need to be taken out of the equation.

Every business has a right to make a profit. It's called capitalism. If you don't like it, move to France or Germany.

Insurance companies add no value to healthcare. Bureaucrats who just add overhead to healthcare costs

If you disagree with companies providing medical insurance, then surely you disagree with companies providing car insurance or life insurance or house insurance or disability insurance, etc.... These companies must exist in order to provide these necessary types of benefits, otherwise people would not be able to survive a loss....no matter what kind of loss that would be. Medical insurance is no exception to the rule. ALL insurance companies exist to make a profit. What are you going to do......have the govt take over ALL types of insurance coverage???

 

[JohnA]

The answer is private insurance that works the same as all your other insurance (home, life, and auto).

You buy it from any company in the country, and you select what options you want. And your policy doesn't expire when you quit or lose your job. You can keep the same policy for as long as you wish, and earn the same discounts you get with your other types of insurance.

Employer-sponsored health care needs to go. It bends the cost curve up, and it is a huge tax expenditure. It is a gigantic obstacle toward fixing our national health care system.

With most people buying their own insurance in a truly competitive market, we should see a great reduction in health insurance costs.



In addition, we should raise the Medicare eligibility age to 70, or at least index it to 6 percent of the population. We should be supporting the same percentage of the population as when Social Security was first created, not allowing the burden to creep up to more than double that amount as is now the case.

This reform would free up trillions of dollars of obligations which could then be used for assistance to people with catastrophic illnesses.


.

good post says it as it is .

 

[Polk]

The answer is private insurance that works the same as all your other insurance (home, life, and auto).

You buy it from any company in the country, and you select what options you want. And your policy doesn't expire when you quit or lose your job. You can keep the same policy for as long as you wish, and earn the same discounts you get with your other types of insurance.

Employer-sponsored health care needs to go. It bends the cost curve up, and it is a huge tax expenditure. It is a gigantic obstacle toward fixing our national health care system.

With most people buying their own insurance in a truly competitive market, we should see a great reduction in health insurance costs.



In addition, we should raise the Medicare eligibility age to 70, or at least index it to 6 percent of the population. We should be supporting the same percentage of the population as when Social Security was first created, not allowing the burden to creep up to more than double that amount as is now the case.

This reform would free up trillions of dollars of obligations which could then be used for assistance to people with catastrophic illnesses.

.

Raising the Medicare eligibility age just shifts costs around. It costs more money in aggregate to dump those people into the individual market.

 

[Valox]

I am all for free market solutions, but that would be radical. It would require eliminating patents to Big Pharma, doctors and hospitals, along with regulations and any oversight. This would certainly drive the price down, as well as quality, but I think we pay too much for the quality as is.

However, lets be real. When Republicans talk about private health care, they are not talking about the free market. They are talking about the government protecting the pharmaceutical and health care industries by propping up billions of dollars in economic rent through patents, protectionist policies, licenses, and regulations. The private solution, proposed by Republicans is a big government solution.

While I am for a true free market solution for health care, I also don't mind learning from others and every other industrialized country has shown that it can get better health outcomes for much cheaper.

I am not an ideologue who wants to place people's health before the data.

 

[Polk]

There should be no profit motive involved. Insurance companies exist to make money. They need to be taken out of the equation.

Government runs things best. Look at the Post Office vs FedEx

USPS delivers just as well as FedEx for lower costs. FedEx and UPS also massively piggy-back to USPS's infrastructure.

 

[Polk]

Public provision of health insurance has repeatedly been shown to deliver superior results at lower costs.

 

[Greenbeard]

There should be no profit motive involved. Insurance companies exist to make money. They need to be taken out of the equation.

Every business has a right to make a profit. It's called capitalism. If you don't like it, move to France or Germany.

Insurance companies add no value to healthcare. Bureaucrats who just add overhead to healthcare costs

I have to disagree. There is an important role for insurers to play in helping people manage their care and make better decisions, and in holding providers accountable for the job they're doing. Fixing the broken markets and bad incentives that've given insurers a bad rep was a necessary step toward helping make sure insurers can live up to that potential.

 

[Polk]

Every business has a right to make a profit. It's called capitalism. If you don't like it, move to France or Germany.

Insurance companies add no value to healthcare. Bureaucrats who just add overhead to healthcare costs

I have to disagree. There is an important role for insurers to play in helping people manage their care and make better decisions, and in holding providers accountable for the job they're doing. Fixing the broken markets and bad incentives that've given insurers a bad rep was a necessary step toward helping make insurers can live up to that potential.

Indeed. Just thinking about drug costs, insurers encourage good behavior by charging lower co-pays for the generic version. Then drug companies market the original as being the "real McCoy" and handing out coupons to circumvent the system.

 

[JoeB131]

The answer is private insurance that works the same as all your other insurance (home, life, and auto).

You buy it from any company in the country, and you select what options you want. And your policy doesn't expire when you quit or lose your job. You can keep the same policy for as long as you wish, and earn the same discounts you get with your other types of insurance.

Employer-sponsored health care needs to go. It bends the cost curve up, and it is a huge tax expenditure. It is a gigantic obstacle toward fixing our national health care system.

With most people buying their own insurance in a truly competitive market, we should see a great reduction in health insurance costs.

In addition, we should raise the Medicare eligibility age to 70, or at least index it to 6 percent of the population. We should be supporting the same percentage of the population as when Social Security was first created, not allowing the burden to creep up to more than double that amount as is now the case.
.

Maybe we should do what the Eskimos used to do and put our old people on icebergs.. Because, honestly, it sounds more humane than what you are proposing. Of course, with global warming, it's not like we are going to have icebergs for long.

Here's the problem with private health insurance.

The young and healthy would never buy it. The middle aged and less healthy would pay through the nose.

Unlike your car insurance, which goes up every time you have an accident, health insurance would become unaffordable as you get older. No one is going to write a policy for a 65 year old grandmother with diabetes. Yeah, a 20 year old arobics instructor can get a really good rate, but she probably will figure she doesn't need the insurance.

Single payer, with the government dictating costs. Every other industrialized country does this. They have longer life expectencies, lower infant mortality rates. Few people go bankrupt due to medical crisis. They spend half as much per person as we do.

THIS IS NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE!

 

[Article 15]

Single payor with a supplementary private market.