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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 28, 2013 07:56 PM |
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Elodin, how can a grown-up person be so ... shallow? I mean, HEALTH is not a "business"; well, it IS, but that's the problem, isn't it? Market is based on FREE CHOICE (although that's a chimera due to advertisement and so on), at least in theory: you can compare products, decide what to buy or if to buy and so on.
With health though, your hand is somewhat forced, right? If you have a heart attack you can't start comparing hospital prices nation-wide or even state-wide. You can't order your surgery at amazon's or with the cheapest seller.
Which means, there is no competition. Sure, there is competition when it comes to cosmetic surgery, but that's not HEALTH, but LIFE STYLE. It's like a hairdresser.
No competition means, that people are extorted. Black-mailed. And that's only the start. The rarer your desease the higher the probability that a) no insurance pays and b) no treatment will help (meaning, there is a good chance that you are best off doing nothing). No one will tell you, though, because "doing nothing" is bad for business.
In the US health is already the biggest business - I#d call it a racket. Costs are completely out of control and it's high time that the government regulates the business.
Won't happen, though.
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 28, 2013 10:24 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 22:25, 28 Feb 2013.
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I seriously don't understand how a very strongly believing christian, supposed to cheerish life, can compare healthcare, i.e. LIFE, to TV SETS.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 28, 2013 10:38 PM |
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Because you still believe Elodin is representative of anything related to Christians? Elodin is...Elodin, period.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 28, 2013 10:57 PM |
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JJ:
If it's an emergency, it's probably going to be expensive, which means you won't be paying for it out-of-pocket (because you should have catastrophic health insurance). And then keeping costs down is the concern of the insurance company.
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Eccentric Opinion
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JollyJoker
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posted February 28, 2013 11:05 PM |
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No, that's wrong. The insurance companies have no interest in keeping the costs down, because they simply adjust the premiums accordingly.
Instead, insurance companies employ clever mathematicians to find interesting statistical connections in order to be able to offer cheap premiums to the right groups of people.
Think other insurances. Say cars. Do insurances have an interest in keeping repair or car costs low?
Nah.
Insurances don't care about these kind of things.
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friendofgunnar
Honorable
Legendary Hero
able to speed up time
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posted February 28, 2013 11:07 PM |
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If anybody ever needs to know why socialism exists, it's because of attitudes like this:
Quote:
And I still see no rational arguments about why one person should to forced to pay for another person's health care
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 28, 2013 11:30 PM |
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JJ:
The insurance company can make money at either end - by reducing costs or increasing premiums. If it increases premiums, it loses some customers (those healthier or more open to risk). It's true that insurance companies try to price discriminate as much as possible, but their ability to do so is limited by imperfect information.
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Eccentric Opinion
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 01, 2013 06:29 AM |
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It's also true that the money saving end of insurances is on the expense of the insured mosst of the time - they are simply not paying up, if they have the slightest excuse.
The information only allows an insurance to be more competitive - they enable them to better calculate the risk. They want to exclude possible desaster cases and get as many healthy people as possible.
However, too much information is destroying the purpose of such an insurance. If they could correctly "tax" you, you wouldn't need an insurance anymore, since it would be cheaper to have no insurance at all (you save the money for the insurance).
Which means that an insurance must be based on incomplete information: there must be people who "profit", and there must be people who don't.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted March 01, 2013 01:33 PM |
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Quote:
JJ:
The insurance company can make money at either end - by reducing costs or increasing premiums. If it increases premiums, it loses some customers (those healthier or more open to risk). It's true that insurance companies try to price discriminate as much as possible, but their ability to do so is limited by imperfect information.
Here is the thing, if you got groups A to X, and group B is statistically abnormal ALWAYS, you can cheat with group B. The same applies to every single statistical abnormality.
And thats the beauty of statistics, especially if combined with lets say unspoke rule of price fixing.
So the most ideal way is to make sure that a person can't pay for medical operations without paying too much, so the person needs to be on a insurance. So if you manage to make a deal that makes sure that you get a discount, yet the uncount peasant who just goes trough it alone don't, there is the most excellent example of that you want to keep on inflating the prices.
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted March 01, 2013 11:52 PM |
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I would have no confidance in a free health care system. Why?
Once upon a time I was treated very well, I had very good insurance. It has been long years and one nasty medical-ride since then and because I have the government-brand today and getting anything done means the patient (me) has to do it.
A fun example of health(ireallydon't)care
I'm in a lot of pain and must wait 3 months to see a specialist. I did the pre-screen, over-the-phone bit the day before the appointment and was good to go. The next morning I get there and I'm told that I "must" call the hospital before I can see the doctor.
I take the note (I'm in a lot of pain, and exhausted) and recognize the number as the folks that I had had to talk to yesterday. I call:
Me: "I was told that I had to call this number before I could see the doctor"
(I hear the sound of the shuffling of papers)
a very long pause
She: hmm,
another pause
She: "Can I put you on hold...Markkur?"
Me: "Yes"
footsteps
several minutes pass
footsteps
She: "Markkur, do you have any idea why we wanted you to call us?"
<imo> When money leaves the system; so will "many" good doctors and nurses and supporting staff.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted March 02, 2013 01:48 AM |
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Edited by Elodin at 01:53, 02 Mar 2013.
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Elodin, how can a grown-up person be so ... shallow?
I'm not shallow, JJ, nor am I the one who has time after time proved himself incapable of holding a mature, rational adult conversation instead of insulting the other persons in the conversation.
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I mean, HEALTH is not a "business"; well, it IS, but that's the problem, isn't it? Market is based on FREE CHOICE (although that's a chimera due to advertisement and so on), at least in theory: you can compare products, decide what to buy or if to buy and so on.
Heath is not a business. Health care is. Eating is not a business. Restaurants are. Farms are. Grocery stores are.
A person needs food, clothing, and shelter to survive. None of that means other people should be forced to provide those things to someone who is lacking those things.
I believe in charity, not robbery (welfare.) Charity is someone of his own volition giving to another person. Welfare is the federal government stealing from one person in order to give to another person (who has usually prostituted his vote to the people running the government.)
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No competition means, that people are extorted. Black-mailed.
Nah, a health care provider is not blackmailing you when you seek services. And a hospital can't turn you way if you need immediate treatment regardless of your ability to pay.
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In the US health is already the biggest business - I#d call it a racket. Costs are completely out of control and it's high time that the government regulates the business.
Won't happen, though.
Calling health care a racket is rather obscene. I have had a lot of experience with health care providers and they most seemed like very nice and caring people.
What is out of control is moronic socialist propaganda telling people they have a right to the property of other people. No matter if you want what I have or if you "need" what I have you have no right to what I have. If I chose to give you something that is my choice. If you steal from me with a gun or a government as a weapon you have become a thief.
If you are unable to pay your medical bills you can ask the hospital to write the off, ask for assistance from friends, neighbors, and charitable organizations. What you don't have the right to do is steal from another person. Your theft of what is theirs makes them more unable to provide for their own needs. But selfish people only think of themselves and not of what their theft is doing to the people they steal from.
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Because you still believe Elodin is representative of anything related to Christians? Elodin is...Elodin, period.
Sadly you have demonstrated you know little of Christianity so you are in a poor position to say how well I represent Christianity. But the topic of the thread is not about me.
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Elodin
Promising
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Free Thinker
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posted March 02, 2013 01:56 AM |
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No, that's wrong. The insurance companies have no interest in keeping the costs down, because they simply adjust the premiums accordingly.
That is quite silly and quite wrong. Insurance companies make deals with hospitals and with auto shops for set prices on their goods and services. Any business that does not care about costs won't be in business for long. Only governments don't care about costs because they can simply keep stealing more and more money from the people.
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Revelation
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted March 02, 2013 02:29 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 02:32, 02 Mar 2013.
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JJ is for the most part correct. Healthcare in the US is not anything even remotely approaching a free market - despite being the largest single sector of the US economy - and as hospitals consolidate the problem will become even worse due to the fact that insurance companies will have even less negotiating leverage than they do now. Negotiation is already done off of pricing schemes that have nothing to do with actual product costs. The end result is that premiums will continue to rise, and Obamacare only exacerbates that by restricting how insurance companies do their underwriting. The amusing thing is that hospitals are still able to be treated as non-profits under the US tax code, despite the fact that the services they are selling often have profit margins of several hundred percent, even more in some cases, and the people who run these "non-profits" are earning 3-5 million dollars a year in salary in some cases.
It's a totally whacked system. How else can you explain that hospitals can charge over $1.50 for a single tylenol tablet and over $200 for saline solution? Sure, insurance companies bargain that down by 50-60%, and they tell you (the idiot consumer) you're getting a great deal (look how much we saved you!) - but even after that the hospitals are still making 40-50 times what you could purchase the same stuff for in your local drug store. And we say the system isn't broken...
Bah, don't get me started. I only revived the thread because the article I linked was the single best explanation I've ever come across that's wrong with the system.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 02, 2013 03:07 AM |
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JJ:
If an insurance company knows you're a high risk, it'll require you to pay higher premiums. If you know you're a high risk (and the insurance company doesn't), then buying a lot of coverage is a good deal for you. But insurance works because often neither you nor the insurance company knows exactly how much at risk you are.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted March 02, 2013 03:46 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 03:46, 02 Mar 2013.
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Except the overwhelming number of insurance policies purchased aren't based on calculations of personal risk, because almost everyone is under some kind of group policy. Insurance is a far better deal if you're unhealthy, because the premiums are subsidized by healthy people who are paying up to meet the "average risk" of everyone who buys into the policy. Which might lead you to believe that you'd be better off buying an individual policy if you're healthy, but that doesn't work because the insurance companies give relatively good deals to employers who bring them lots of paying members - a group discount that would seem to benefit everyone. But it's an illusion, because if the health insurance industry made any real sense, individual policies would be more affordable. They're not, by and large, because the cost structure for medical services is so out of the spectrum of reality, and that because the industry is almost completely unregulated, untaxed, noncompetitive, and almost completely out of the hands of consumers who rarely get a chance to see costs ahead of time, don't have a choice of where to shop and don't do any actual purchasing themselves.
Ah, but the "Affordable" Care Act will solve everything, right?
Right?
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 02, 2013 08:25 AM |
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I see that we are in agreement here.
Fact is, the US are leading the health cost board of the world with a whopping 18% of their GNP. EIGHTEEN percent. They also lead the board of PRIVATE spent money on that with an incredible 47% (of the whole).
Now the sad thing is this: I live in Germany. We spend 12% of the GNP for health and 22% of that privately - but the system is STILL woefully screwed. (Compare with Britain: 10% overall, 16% private.) In Germany there have been lots of commissions and investigations, and they all come to the same conclusion: that there is a racket going in the healthcare business that can be called only organized crime.
Comparing costs - why would that be different in the US?
The problem is, that in the health "business", people are paid for doing something, not for SUCCESSFULLY doing something. Obviously, in the health business SUCCESS should pay, while FAILURE should spell minimum payment/no win. In other words - people shouldn't be paid a fortune for treating people UNSUCCESSFULLY. Or, seen from another perspective: people should not have to pay a fortune for being treated unsuccessfully.
So in my opinion, THE GOVERNMENT should control the health system. It should operate on a non-profit base. Profit should be made with SUCCESS only.
Would that be too much asked? Today, there is a lot of money made with treating hopeless cases. There is a desperate person with a desperate condition, and while everyone knows that there really can't be done anything, except for a healthy diet, no drugs, regular activity and praying, the system REWARDS prescription of all kinds of things the desperate patient will try, even though it makes no sense. The system also rewards to wring even the last ounce of life out of people who should have died naturally some time ago already, instead of being kept "alive", no matter what.
Alls these things should not make ANY profit. Period. People working in the health business should have a fin ancial interest in healing and curing you, not in keeping you as a paying customer.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted March 02, 2013 08:59 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 09:03, 02 Mar 2013.
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Quote:
So in my opinion, THE GOVERNMENT should control the health system. It should operate on a non-profit base. Profit should be made with SUCCESS only.
Perhaps. At the very least, the government should TAX health care providers like hospitals and remove their non-profit status. Since there really is no way for health care to be a free, voluntary market - it just can't; nobody is going to shop around for the lowest price ER while they're having a heart attack - the business and cost structure should also be heavily regulated, far more than it is now - and yes this is coming from a guy who believes in most cases government should butt the hell out.
Point of fact is that the only place in the US health care system where costs are even anywhere NEAR regulated in a fair fashion seems to be when Medicare is involved, because Congress sets the amount of money that Medicare will pay out for procedures and so forth through legislation. Hospital administrators (who are rarely medical professionals) snow and whine that they lose money from Medicare patients, but it's all a bunch of bullsnow. They only lose money compared to non-medicare patients, and besides, as nonprofits they're chief goal isn't supposed to be making money anyway. It's supposed to be servicing the communities.
The Medicare model needs to be expanded at the least to set limits on what private insurance companies have to pay out as well, and it should be expanded for Medicare in the area of pharmaceuticals. Honestly at this point I'd be willing to support a bill that expands Medicare to cover more of the population, provided it were properly funded, in the hope that it would help lower costs for everyone. Taxes levied on hospitals could be used to pay for the expansion of Medicare and would limit the incentive for the nonmedical managers of hospital "nonprofit" institutions to line their pockets through obnoxious costs of products they offer. And finally, tort reform would also help keep costs down by reducing the amount of malpractice insurance doctors have to buy and would limit the amount of unnecessary expensive tests hospitals order to cover their arses from frivolous lawsuits.
Is any of that likely to happen? No.
Did Obamacare do any of this? Not much. About the only thing Obamacare did right was eliminate maximum yearly payouts by insurance companies, but in the end that's going to increase the cost of healthcare rather than reduce it, at least while the ridiculous costs of medical services persist.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 02, 2013 09:10 AM |
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Quote:
The problem is, that in the health "business", people are paid for doing something, not for SUCCESSFULLY doing something.
I see the problem with that, but consider the problem with the opposite situation - suppose you're sick and it's likely that you won't get better (but recovery is still possible). What doctor would treat you, knowing that even if they do everything as well as they can, you'd likely still get worse (and so they wouldn't get paid)? At least with health care being paid for in terms of procedures rather than outcomes, people who are sufficiently unlikely to recover wouldn't get any treatment.
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Eccentric Opinion
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JollyJoker
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posted March 02, 2013 09:13 AM |
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I repeat that BRITAIN has a working system. It gives FREE healthcare to everyone, which is tax-paid (that is, hospitals and so on are government operated, and people are paid by the government), but it also allows PRIVATELY OWNED doctors and hospitals to operate.
Obviously that makes a lot of sense. People with money can do whatever they want while people without are cared for.
That's basically operated the same way than schools. You can send your kids to a private school, if you have money, and most of the time they will probably get a better education there, but you don't HAVE to.
Within our capitalist system, That is as good a solution as it gets.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted March 02, 2013 09:19 AM |
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Edited by artu at 09:19, 02 Mar 2013.
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Quote:
I repeat that BRITAIN has a working system. It gives FREE healthcare to everyone, which is tax-paid (that is, hospitals and so on are government operated, and people are paid by the government), but it also allows PRIVATELY OWNED doctors and hospitals to operate.
Same in here. Do I get this right, does this mean in US and Germany there are no state hospitals AT ALL?
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