@JPB,
JPB wrote:
nope --- you said it
here.
Foxfyre wrote:
JPB wrote:
What value do these private insurance companies provide that requires a profit-making enterprise? I'd agree with you, fox, if we were talking about a commodity that is produced or manufactured but we're talking about a service. Fees are generated by a service provider and his/her/their fees are paid for by the insurance co/government/individual. Private enterprise rewards risk taking with profit. Fine -- I'm all over that concept. But, what risk is the insurance company taking that needs to be rewarded? NONE! They drop any high-risk individuals -- or refuse to take them on to begin with -- they ration services as if they were the one's determining need, they establish usual and customary charges, and I'm not at all convinced that there isn't collusion going on behind the scenes.
There was a day when insurance companies took on risk. Those days no longer exist, imo.
I disagree. Insurance companies are putting their capital and assets on the line every time they write a policy. A small business may pay say $4000/year in insurance premiums for work comp coverage. One injury can require the insurance company to pay that $4000 plus tenfold or a hundredfold or more.
You can't tell me the insurance company is not assuming risk.
El Stud and I pay around $1,500 year for auto insurance on our cars. One small fender bender can wipe out all the premiums the insurance collected from us, and a major accident can wipe out all the premiums we will pay in a lifetime.
That is not insignificant risk for the insurance company.
The average USA healthcare premium for maximum coverage for a family costs about $1,000/month. One emergency room visit by one member of the family can wipe out that month's premium. An illness or accident or surgery requiring just a few days in the hospital will easily wipe out two or three times the annual premiums. A major illness or accident can wipe out all the premiums the family will pay over a lifetime.
That is not insignificant risk for the insurance company.
Because so many are dependent on the insurance company to remain solvent,
who can quarrel with the insurance company turning down certain kinds of business for which there is unacceptable high risk and/or charging higher premiums for those that present much higher risk.
We have four major players in the HC game (beyond the providers and recipients). We have Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Government, and now (potentially) Big Food. Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and Big Food all do VERY WELL when the average American is generally unhealthy, or even quite ill. What better way to balance the risk that we all must carry by denying coverage to those who need it most than to pit the Big Three who benefit from our lack of good health against each other in a capitalist model?
Sigh.
JBP, you cannot dispute a single sentence I wrote in that post. You can pull the liberal numbnut stunt of attempting to write more into it than I wrote into it, or pretend that I'm saying or thinking something different than I said, but you cannot dispute a single line in my post that you quoted.
You are also apparently intentionally avoiding the point that I was making with that post.
I contract with technicians all the time who specialize in certain kinds of business and refuse to take on certain kinds of similar work because they a) they don't have the people or equipment to do it or b) they just don't want to do it. Should the government tell them they HAVE to do it anyway because there is nobody else around who can do it?
Your homeowner's policy almost certainly excludes coverage for flood, damage from riots, insurrection, or war, earthquakes, or business losses etc. Why? Because exclusion of such things allows the insurance company to offer an affordable policy to more people over a broader area than they would otherwise be able to do. Should the government require them to insure against riot and floods and earthquakes even though they cannot assume that additional risk without costing everybody much higher insurance costs, perhaps prohibitive costs for some?
The government, however, does underwrite flood insurance and earthquake insurance, and this does not compete with the private sector who doesn't want that kind of business. Some specialty companies write umbrella policies that covers other kinds of losses that regular insurance doesn't cover but they generally write only parts of the loss with others writing other parts so that the risk is spread and therefore is more affordable.
A health insurance company writes a policy that specifies what it will and will not cover, what is included, what is excluded, what limitations apply, etc. If they didn't specify certain exclusions or rates were not increased to include certain high risk conditions, the policy would have to cost much more than it does for everybody.
Just as it does with flood and earthquake insurance, however, the government, however, could offer high risk, catastrophic kinds of policies without competing with private insurance companies and that would provide a useful service for everybody. Is that option on the table for consideration? Nope.
My reaction to that piece you posted was pure license for the government to not only meddle in what healthcare we would be required to buy and how that healthcare would be controlled and rationed and administrated by the government, but strongly suggested license for the government to take control of what we would and would not be allowed to eat, what we would or would not be allowed to weigh, and require that we all live the happy, healthy, life as the government prescribes. It didn't come right out and say that, of course, but if the government can have the power to force us to buy healthcare insurance of the kind the governmetn sanctions, the government has the pwoer to force us to do anything.
For those for whom it is simply too hard making their own choices, developing discipline, and accepting consequences for the choices they make, the nanny state probably looks pretty good.
Those of us who see the virtues in freedom and the right to take risks despite the downside of that are much less enthusiastic about government mandated healthcare.
