Insurance Is The Problem (Guest Voice)
Insurance Is The Problem
by Jim Bell
Many of us have this dream that we could have less government in our lives and a better quality of life at the same time. Seems silly doesn’t it? When you look at it objectively, we give the government a lot of money with our taxes. The only thing we need in life from government is a good, safe life and the ability to exercise our freedom.
To have this we need a proper education, good health, safety and the ability to move freely throughout the country at will. This translates into needs for police and fire protection, good schools, protection from our enemies by the military and good health care. If those things were the only things government concerned itself with there would be no reason why Americans could not enjoy good laws, education, health care, highways, parks and recreation facilities—all paid for by the government via our taxes—and our government would probably have money left over.
I realize that this is not what we have.
In the case of our national health care we are way behind the curve and our representatives at both state and federal levels are still thinking inside the box. This is bad, very bad. The U.S. is the last democracy that hasn’t yet gone to national health care and we are nowhere near the top 25 on the list of countries with the best quality of national health. Everyone in congress knows this and both political parties are trying to come up with plans to fix our ailing national health care system. The trouble is that nobody is trying to fix this problem. They are looking at this situation all wrong. What they are trying to do is change our current system so that everyone can have affordable health insurance. Looking at our health care crisis from that point of view will produce no better result than continuing to fix an old, broken down piece of machinery instead of replacing it with a new one.
Changing things around so that everyone can afford health insurance will not address the problem. It will not fix the problems that arise when people lose their job while members of their families are going through complicated or expensive on-going medical treatments. Nor will it fix things so that people can have a needed operation that they cannot pay for.
Today, nobody gets health care unless they can pay for it—even if it means they will die if they don’t get the treatment. Under the insurance system many people will have their health care interrupted while a family member who just lost their job scrapes and scrambles to find other employment. No matter what fix congress comes up with that includes insurance, that type of problem will not be addressed because in most cases the health insurance probably comes from having the job in the first place. Once the job is gone, so is the insurance.
And don’t even think of Cobra. That is simply a way for you to keep your health coverage at three times the original price while you no longer have an income to pay for it.
Insurance is not the solution, it is the problem.
We will not get our health care system fixed by changing the cost of our insurance. What we need to do is take the profit out of the health care industry. As a business, insurance companies have to make a profit. In order for there to be profit people must pay enough for the insurance company to provide the health care and have some funds left over after the health care has been provided. This simply cannot happen if everyone’s health care is provided for.
Insurance companies don’t make money by providing for people’s medical needs, they make money by not covering them. Did you notice that statement above? “Enough for the insurance company to provide the health care.” That is just it. The insurance companies are really just middlemen. Medical coverage should come from medical professionals, not insurance companies. Letting insurance companies get involved in individual health care played a significant role in the escalation of health care costs in the first place. Yet there are still profits.
Medical care cost increases have outpaced inflation all along. At no time since the introduction of insurance into our health care system has inflation outpaced the rate that health care costs have increased. If the government really wants to address our health care problems it should bring about national health care and cut the insurance industry completely out of the picture. The system needs an amputation. Only then will it be possible for families to continue to get health care while one or both of the bread winners are out of work.
National health care would fix a number of problems.
It would remove from any businesses bottom line the need to provide health insurance for their employees. In a large corporation this would be an enormous savings, but in a small business it could make the difference between surviving the start up period and failing to become a viable concern. And we would no longer need to fund Medicare and Medicaid, since national health care would provide for everyone. (Many doctors don’t take Medicare or Medicaid now anyway.) It would also reduce the cost of health care by at least as much as whatever the profit is.
This means that our national health care would be more affordable for the many, than it now is for the few. Since with national health care everyone would receive care, there would be no uninsured people flocking to emergency rooms for the care they cannot afford, which is another factor that drives costs up in our current system.
Changing our system, not altering it, is the cure. Altering things so that more people can afford health insurance isn’t even humane, really. That type of improvement cannot possibly include everyone; it will simply include more than are included now. There will inevitably be some who are left out. Profit is not maximized unless some are denied coverage, and as businesses all insurance companies are responsible to their shareholders for maximized profits. As long as people can be denied coverage for any reason at all, some will die because of the inadequacies of our system.
National health care will have some weaknesses, surely, but it can hardly be worse than what we have now. Sadly, judging by the way things are going in congress this type of change doesn’t look likely in the near future.
Jim Bell was born in Missouri in 1950 and is a graduate of the University of Missouri with a degree in Creative writing/Journalism. He spent over 20 years in the newspaper business and worked in production. He now lives in the Denver area with his wife and runs a blog called The Sensible Approach. He says: “I view myself as slightly to the right of center politically. My views are slightly conservative on the economy and foreign policy and liberal on human rights. It is my opinion that life for the average American goes smoother when there is a balance between the Democrats and Republicans in both houses of congress. Our comfort lies in the fact that a balance of power means that both parties must compromise to get anything done.”
19 Responses to “Insurance Is The Problem (Guest Voice)”
“Today, nobody gets health care unless they can pay for it—even if it means they will die if they don’t get the treatment.”
Everyone in the United States, regardless of age, race, religion, citizenship or any other factor receives necessary treatment even if they cannot pay.
It’s the law. It’s one of the reasons that the costs for those who do pay are so high.
I do agree that insurance companies are the problem with health care, but you seem to believe that it’s because they make a profit.
Wrong.
The insurance model, just like the government run single payer model disconnect the user and the provider from the decision making process. If a third entity is responsible for paying, why care about cost? If a third entity is paying, they are the ones calling the shots about what treatments are done and who does them.
If you as the patient are not also the customer, how do you think you are going to be treated? What makes quality and good service thrive is the ability for the end user (you) to take your money elsewhere when you are not satisfied.
Think about what you want the health care system to look like when the change is finished. You will need to live with it for a long time.
Think first. Then talk about healthcare.
SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM
I guess I misunderstood something. I figured that a site named “The Moderate Voice” would have a problem with BOTH extremes: that of the Right AND of the Left.
So far, every article I've read here seems to take exception only with extreme positions of the neoconservative Right while appearing to have no problem at all with extreme positions of progressive Left (such as universal health care/SOCIALISM). Look, I dislike the neocons as much as you probably do, but Obama and the progressives are NOT the answer IMO, and they are certainly NOT moderate.
I may as well have gone to DailyKos or HuffPo.
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Good article, Jim. I agree. Insurance companies will never care more about your health than their profit. The cries of “socialism” are ignorant. Doctors and hospitals do not become government employees, any more than they are insurance company employees now. We're just talking about who processes the claim and sends the check. Our government already processes many millions of claims annually and (for the most part) efficiently sends checks. The main difference is that our government health care payers (VA, Medicare, Medicaid, govt employee health care) facilitate payment while private insurers attempt not to. The more claims they deny the more money they make. They also have obscene administrative costs including executive compensation, and they spend our health care dollars to market and sell policies, which government providers do not. They also pay handsomely to lobby (bribe) our representatives, another thing government providers don't.
By the insurance companies' own analysis, their costs are 8.9% overhead, plus profit and commissions, bringing the total to 16.7%. Medicare is 5.2% and headed down. The insurance industry projects Medicare overhead at 3.3% by next year, while theirs is not expected to vary “by more than a percent or two”.
Our current system is inefficient, expensive, and fails to deliver what we want: to provide quality health care for all Americans.
Sorry Jim. Your calm and considered opinion will be drowned out by, well, SOCIALISM SOCIALISM…
I guess I misunderstood something. I figured that a site named “The Moderate Voice” would have a problem with BOTH extremes: that of the Right AND of the Left.
So far, every article I've read here seems to take exception only with extreme positions of the neoconservative Right while appearing to have no problem at all with extreme positions of progressive Left (such as universal health care/SOCIALISM). Look, I dislike the neocons as much as you probably do, but Obama and the progressives are NOT the answer IMO, and they are certainly NOT moderate.
I may as well have gone to DailyKos or HuffPo.
Yep I learned pretty quickly the site is moderate in name only, and the majority of articles and opinions lean to the left. Having said that it's still very worthwhile to hang around. Although most of the contributors lean to the left, in general there is a willingness to listen to the opposite opinion that you wouldn't find on DailyKos.
Sorry, Ryan, that rant, on which the GOP is doubling down, isn't working. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/indiv…
Funny how the center is still perceived as left after having been dragged so far to the right over the years. Now that it's beginning to recover a bit of it's equilibrium, some on the right are offended (or deluded) enough to imagine that anything left of center is somehow socialism (a much overused word for the lazy imo). I'm guessing those same folks will be unhappy with anything less than a law of the jungle approach to government. At any rate, if Jim Bell's suggestion was ever implemented and proved to be a success from a business standpoint as well as a social one, then I'm sure the same people who cry socialism now would find something else to demonize.
What we need is the best health outcomes for the whole population at the best price. As Jim points out, we compare poorly in terms of outcomes, with lower “health and life expectancy” (HALE) overall than any other industrialized country and at several times the cost as a % of GDP (HALE is an aggregate score). We have higher heart disease, cancer, infant mortality, low birth weight; and lower life expectancy and other measures of health outcomes, compared to other industrialized nations.
“The US should be particularly concerned about these findings,” says Gerard Anderson, director of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “If I'm spending twice as much, I'd expect to have the better outcomes.”
Seconded!
Here's a thought, right-wing: DEFINE SOCIALISM.
And explain why our socialist postal service works so well 9and we haven't become Russian peasants as a result)
Fearmongering is so…2004.
They're just not ranting loudly enough. Maybe they should add something about Reagan while they're at it.
Ryan, I support louder ranting. It helps paint your side as extremists
Doctors and hospitals do not become government employees under single payer systems, any more than they are insurance company employees now. We're just talking about who processes the claim and sends the check.
GD I need to understand your plan better. Currently there is a doctor-patient contract for the doctor to provide a service and the patient to pay him. Health insurance is a separate contract between the patient and the insurance company for the insurance company to pay the doctor on the patient's behalf. There are also contracts between doctors and insurance companies (though not always) that specify the doctor will accept the fee schedule of the insurance company, be it Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Medicare, Medicaid or whatever.
You are proposing to take away financial responsibility from the patient and force the doctor to deal with a single-payer. This single payer, since it will be government or quasi-government, will set it's own fees without negotiating with the doctor. The doctor will be forced to accept this single payer or otherwise not practice medicine, since the single payer will probably capture 95% of the market (there will be a few doctors who could probably work on a cash-only basis).
Now explain how that is not socialism. Capitalism has been removed from the equation. If a doctor is paid on productivity he will rush to see as many patients as he can. If he is paid a flat fee he will do what he has to, then go home at 5 like most people, causing access and coverage problems. What am I missing here?
The doctor can see more patients, and get more money, which would be paid by the government.
Ryan and GreenDreams factually demonstrate why lefties are either an incapable or, perhaps, gutless bunch. HR 676 has been sitting in Committee since 2003. How long have their dear Democratic leaders controlled the House….since 2006.
Rather than waste bandwidth here, you would think they would just get off their arses and have their boys move the bill out of committee and let it be voted upon.
No, they'd rather spend their time whining or typing in caps on a typewriter rather than actually get something accomplished that no conservative or Republican can stop them from doing.
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screw you CO for the insult. I'm not a congress critter, so don't smear me with that brush. “Democratic leaders” have not been in power since 2006, or even 2007 when the new majority took office. With the GOP filibustering every bill, 51 seats is no longer a majority. It's 60%. With the president and his veto pen, it's 67%. So you can shove that silly argument. Do you lack math skills or think the right leaning crowd here is stupid enough to buy your faulty argument on that?
DaGoat, if your home is damaged, your insurance company pays unless you go with a cadillac repair job. Then they pay what they consider a fair price and you pay the difference. If your home was damaged in a flood or hurricane, the same thing happens, except the federal government pays either the whole cost or that part which they feel is fair. Again, if you want to rebuild with upgrades, you pay the difference.
This is exactly analagous to the difference between private insurance and single payer. You don't negotiate cost with the physician, though you could. The doctor can accept what your insurance company pays, or charge you the difference. Some take neither insurance nor medicare. It's still a free, capitalist country. We're just expanding the current government health care system from old and poor people, military and government employees, to everyone.
Now WHY does this always degenerate into battles over whether it's “socialism” or capitalism? I asked a simple question. Is our goal not to provide the best health care for the best cost to all Americans? If so, tell me why profit, advertising, sales expense and the determination to deny claims is a better system. What's the benefit?
Please watch this Frontline documentary at the PBS website or on Netflix for more information about health care in 5 different countries and how it varies. The documentary is called “Sick around the World” it was very interesting and informative. It may be “socialism” but there has to be something better than what we currently have in this country. They covered healthcare systems in Britain, Germany and 3 other countries.