Well, sure, there is a loss to services, etc. entailed in profit. And certainly how that profit is spent is in the hands of those men most likely to benefit. Naturally, we rely on their ethics and civic virtue to ensure that those benefits are not excessive, but kept within the bounds of reason, a few tens of millions for a modest stipend…
But, we can be assured that this inherent inefficiency is nothing compared to the magical inefficiency of government-run operations, we have that in the very best authority! It is not necessary to speak the name of that authority, our hushed tones of reverence should suffice.
I would regard “slipping through the cracks” to mean that someone’s paperwork fell behind the filing cabinet, got misrouted, or never handled because the right hand thought the left hand had taken care of it.
Exactly! Thank you for making my point for me. This is why governmental central planning never works. Government ALWAYS makes errors in planning. And when it does, does it provide workarounds or some other way of making adjustments or taking care of the individuals who’ve been negatively affected by that governmental “oversight”? No. It simply says “Tough shit”, just like it did in the three cases I mentioned above.
And my argument is that there is absolutely no reason for that argument to exist outside of wishful thinking. There are very good reasons why government is a laughingstock when it comes to speed, efficiency and fulfilling expected results. Comedians and Hollywood movies have made hay of it for decades and decades.
And what’s wrong with insurance companies paying bonuses to employees for finding reasons to withhold coverage, provided that those reasons are legitimate. Do you think that insurance companies should just pay whatever claims come in no matter what? (You don’t really need to answer that, I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.)
And besides, governments with UHC watch expenses too. It’s precisely why Nikki Phelps was denied treatment in the article linked to above. You guys like to pretend that no one will be denied treatment under UHC because of cost, and it just ain’t so!
I happen also to believe that stories of insurance company malfeasance coming from the left are grossly exaggerated. I’ve had occasion to know a great many people in my life, and almost without exception their insurance has covered what they were treated for like it was supposed to. Most of the people I’ve known never even concern themselves with it as long as they know their particular ailment or treatment is covered.
And look at how many people around here complain about not being able to change jobs without losing their insurance, or about how scary it is to lose their jobs and the insurance that goes with it. If insurance was as flaky as you people would have us believe, no one would bother carrying it in the first place, much less worry about losing it or no longer having it once it was lost.
No, I submit that this whole insurance thing is nothing but a smokescreen for the inherent liberal desire to socialize society. This is made obvious by how little insurance company malfeasance actually happens, and by how harmful decisions made by government are blown off or excused when the same decisions would be regarded as unconscionable if made by a private company. UHC proponents don’t really care - as has been made obvious in this very thread and the one on Diana Smith - if people die or suffer as long as it’s at the hands of government, and they will handwave away or explain as perfectly reasonable and understandable behavior coming from socialized medicine that would have them purple with rage were some insurance company were to do the same.
So, since pain, suffering, delays and deaths don’t seem to bother UHC’s liberal proponents as long as they are inflicted by government UHC programs, the only conclusion left to draw is that they simply want socialized medicine no matter what. And given that once government takes over fully and completely, little recourse is available, I much prefer to take my chances with the vagaries of fate and private care where other options, and frequently high-quality options at that, always exist.
The government is not some monolithic entity. It is composed of numerous agencies and sub-agencies that work with varying degrees and levels of speedy, efficiency, and competency. The Post Office is not a laughing stock when it comes to speed, efficiency, and fulfilling expected results. The IRS is certainly not well-loved, but is not generally thought to be a laughing stock for speed or efficiency reasons, particularly since they manage to process millions of income tax returns and still get tax refunds to those owed them typically within 4-5 weeks of the filing of the return.
SA, just a couple of questions. Are you on Medicare now? If not will you subscribe to Medicare in the near future? Are any of your relatives receiving Medicare or Medicaid?
IIRC, Starving Artist is 61. So he’s 4 years away from facing the government insurance “death panels” of Medicare, just when he’ll be in the demographic group that’s mostly likely to have medical problems. He must be quaking in his boots over that fact.
The right hand not knowing what the left is doing in a case where it should is a design flaw. Paperwork getting lost could happen anywhere, including a private insurance company, and is too universal a possibility to lay at the feet of just a government employee.
As opposed to thousands of cases where a private insurance company made an oversight and has a distinct and obvious incentive to not fix the problem because for them, being able to avoid paying claims is not a problem at all. The entire business model of insurance is that dealing with claims, let alone paying them out, is a money-losing proposition. There is no reward to the company for efficiency, and every company knows it.
Comedians still tell jokes about not being able to program VCRs and Hollywood thinks computers are big scary monsters eager to eat our souls.
My immediate answer is to sigh and point out yet again that you’re attempting to make your point by jumping to the opposite extreme and asking if I believe something that only exists in your fantasies of liberal monsters roaming the countryside.
I’m not pretending UHC is free of problems. You’re pretending that I’m pretending that.
There doesn’t have to be malfeasance. The incentive to slow down disbursement is, I trust to anyone with half a functioning brain, obvious, and there are a great many Americans who simply can’t get private insurance at all. I wouldn’t bother arguing that private companies have to taken them on as clients, but I still think you’re better with some form of UHC that’ll cover everyone moderately well, with wealthier Americans able to buy more comprehensive private insurance as it suits them.
And the people you personally know isn’t a statistical sample. To be fair, the people other posters personally know who’ve enjoyed Canadian single-payer aren’t, either. All it demonstrates is that dealing with an American company or a Canadian agency is not automatically successful or futile. It’s worth pointing out, though, that a Canadian can always at least try to deal with an agency, while an uninsured American (of which there are plenty) doesn’t really have anywhere to turn.
Not being American and thus lacking personal experience with this sort of thing, I can just point out that I’ve never had to dwell on what would happen if I changed jobs. As anecdotal evidence, it’s as useless as what I described a paragraph ago, though.
So Canada, which has had public insurance for several decades now, must have given into this smokescreen and descended into full-blown socialism, no? I mean, if we’re concerned about socialist threats, then surely you can point out countries where government medical insurance opened the floodgates.
I’m not shrugging off the problems and limitations of UHC (or at least the Canadian version with which I am most familiar). And even if there were absolutely no provable cases of company malfeasance, it is obvious that for a great many Americans, the companies have no interest in offering coverage. It is also obvious that if the companies can delay making payouts, for even a short time, profits increase. It’s nothing anybody could specifically label malfeasance, but the incentive is obvious.
I am neither handwaving nor purple. Under any system, cases like Smiths can occur. I believe with good grounding that fewer (not none) such cases occur when some form of UHC exists. Your argument consists of (incorrectly) assuming the motives of your opponents, then fighting the motives you have assumed.
Case in point.
Canada’s government insurance plan has not taken over fully and completely, but you’re just as free to lie about it as you are to take your chances with private options.
Actually, now that I think about it, I think Switzerland has an all-private system. At least that’s what the Heritage report SA linked said was the case in 2001 or so. I guess it’s the same now.
Oooh! Tough words. So, since there are actually no genuinely free markets, we are simply supposed to bow down and accept your “wisdom” about a hypothetical that occurs only inside your head?
Where did I say “there are actually no genuinely free markets”?
You know what, never mind. If you have an actual question for me, I will attempt to answer it. If you are going to just keep assuming that I must mean something based on a completely stupid misreading of what I am saying, then kindly go be stupid more quietly. Thanks.