Making a profit on the health/life/death of patients? Does that sound right to you? I thought doctors became doctors to save lives? No one is saying they shouldn't be well-paid, but it is the insurance companies, Hospital Corporations, Drug Companies, Medical Equipment suppliers who make a KILLING (pun intended) on patients.
I don't believe that removing the profit motive FROM INSURERS would reduce the innovation you're talking about. We still have one of the richest populations in the world, and those innovations will continue to come as a result.
i think the ACA can be a start to a single payer system. a lot of people work for insurance companies. it will be a long process to move the function to the gov't
Agreed, we should take measured steps, but everyone should know what we are taking measured steps TOWARDS.
We wont have a single payer system for a long time. We will have a very heavily subsidized private system.
One is profiting from suffering and/or bad luck while the other from basic necessities. Big difference
The govt isn't subsidizing anyone. They are regulating an out of control industry that can bankrupt this nation. 18% of GDP is spent on healthcare. They don't need subsidizing.
Your initial premise is wrong. Health care pricing has nothing to do with supply and demand. Diagnostic tests including MRI and CT scans are not that expensive to the hospital, yet they charge incredibly high fees (relative to what these same tests cost in other countries where the demand is just as high). The costs are based on a tug of war between how much the hospital thinks it can get from the insurance companies, and how much the insurance companies think they can get away with raising rates, and passing on costs to their paying customers. Do not treat health care like it is Business A selling widgets in Econ 101.
Doctors are well respected and most are good people who do whatever to save a life. They deserve to get paid well just like any other profession with rare skills. The problem is insurance companies. The whole insurance industry is one giant unproductive parasite. They provide no real value to society yet we can’t avoid them. IMO there are two solutions. 1. Let the free market solve the problem. Fair competition drives cost down and quality up. However it’s customer’s decision to have insurance or not. 2. Government funds universal health care like Canada and England. This is the beast method but relies on the federal department being competent and efficient. What we have right now is a system full of conflicted interests. Gov demands everyone to have insurance. Insurance companies now can jack up prices without the fear of losing customers. The demand is infinite that it becomes a monopoly by the whole industry.
This part basically made me glaze over. Aren't medical bills the biggest cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. nowadays? I'm guessing it makes an incredible impact for a ridiculous amount of people, and it totally matters whether you go to the doctor or not, in the short and long term.
No, they are not profiting from suffering. They are profiting from providing a service that you want. They are helping. If food was as expensive as healthcare, would you say the butcher, the farmer, the grocer, etc, are all profiting from starving people who are suffering because they are making money by providing food?
What you just said is exactly what supply and demand is. The tug of war you speak of is supply and demand. The over-utilization of insurance causes prices to sky-rocket. It's a distorted form of supply and demand due to the third-party payer. If you were paying for an MRI out-of-pocket, the price would go way, way down.
People file for bankruptcy protection from unpaid medical bills due to: A. Not having insurance at all B. Having high-deductible insurance that they can't afford These problems would be greatly reduced with the solutions I provided.
What exactly do you think medicare and medicaid is? The ACA subsidizes people who do not exceed a certain amount of money a year. Who pays for medicare and medicaid? Government Who performs the service? Private sector
This is what I would like to see. The government subsidizes the actual business, equipment and treatment. They also reimburse schooling for medical professionals over a couple decades. The patient pays doctors and staff wages. This will force doctors to be competitive. The private sector can purchase catastrophic insurance to cover the doctors and staffs wages.
