are you really this obtuse in real life?
THE $9.3 BILLION in profit, is our money....coming from our insurance premiums paid by us and our employers, over and ABOVE our money for the policy that DOES PAY for actual medical care....over and above the money we pay for our policies that goes towards all the employee salaries and benefits, over and above the amount we pay for the ceo salaries and bonuses and over and above what our premiums pay for the overhead of these insurance companies....
ALL of this money given to them by us through our premiums could be better spent if this middle man, was cut out of the picture....and we just paid the doctors, hospitals and pharma, what they are charging the insurance companies for the health care services provided us.....
Are you proposing a survival of the fittest mentality? If each of us paid our own medical bills, a lot of people would be bankrupt. Insurance spreads the risk. If you get a serious medical problem (cancer), then you don't get stuck with the full cost of paying for it. The size of the pool of people insured impacts the price companies pay...the larger the pool the lower the average cost per person.
Without the middleman, how would I help pay for your medical costs? If I am healthy as an ox I lose out by having to pay for other peoples' health issues. As one gets older, health costs goes up...cancer, heart surgury, hip replacements, etc.
We have an aging population which leads to higher health care costs because the types of procedures you need as you get older just cost more.
the insurance companies were refusing to give the older people insurance, even after they paid for insurance their entire healthy life....they raised premiums so high on them to push them out.
THIS is why the government came to ''the rescue'' and created MEDICARE for the elderly....
THIS WAS the biggest GIFTHORSE the Health Insurance industry could ever get, on a silver platter by our gvt. It was the golden egg the insurance companies WANTED. They could sell you insurance for your ENTIRE healthy life, and then when you got old and became sick and COSTLY they DUMPED you, and put the ENTIRE BURDEN on to the tax payers.
so, we have a single payer plan of Medicare, for all seniors health expense on the gvt's shoulder, without the benefit of covering these people and getting their premiums, when they were healthy....that would help balance out covering all the elderly sick later on in life.
I do understand the insurance model and how it eases the risk of becoming sick and not being able to afford it....however, it is a faulty system, and unaffordable for most individuals if their employer was not paying at least 2/3's of the premium price....
This puts a HUGE burden on to our businesses in this country and makes it difficult for us to secure business ventures when competing with companies from the other westernized countries competing against our American corporations in the global marketplace.
So this healthcare expense is the gorilla on their back....and corporations and companies are weaseling out of paying health care premiums for their employees to the extent that they once did and are putting more and more of the cost of the health care premium on to the employee, or DROPPING the health care coverage entirely.
I believe a single payer insurance plan similar to Medicare for all of us, would actually benefit us tax payers in the long run. the $400 a month we pay for our premiums now could be paid in premiums/taxes specifically to cover health care....
I can see how this becomes the golden egg/ gifthorse for our businesses that payed 2/3's of our premiums....so maybe they should be taxed at a flat rate where the money goes in to the universal coverage plan....but the tax on them for this should be at a much lower cost to them verses the money they were spending when they were buying the health insurance plan? At least the uncertainty that businesses have with not knowing each year at renewal time how much MORE health insurance coverage for employees will cost them.
I really don't know....i am just throwing out some ideas here....please feel free to cut them up and show how this could not work or show an idea of your own that could work better....i am not dead set on anything...
the problem i see with my own proposal above is that there is no incentive for the individual to give resistance to the prices hospitals and doctors charge for services....so medical care would continue to rise in price each year....
unless the universal plan determines the price they will pay....but some say this could stifle medical advancement?
maybe the universal coverage should be for just catastrophic/ hospitalization coverage, and it is up to us to pay for our regular check ups and medical care....where us individuals have a say in the price and shop around for the best one?
Again, i just don't know? I am merely thinking out loud...
their business plan and make up does provide for a much more efficient system. thank you for your incite.
