I’ve not heard back from you, Starving. You asked me a question; did I give you a satisfactory answer?
It’s most amusing how you people scramble to find any little flaw in someone’s argument in an apparent effort to claim that the bigger point being made as to your erroneous statements is therefore rendered moot. Still, in this case, you fail even at that.
You might want to revisit my statement as quoted by tomndebb:
Notice I said that 97% of the money that insurance companies take in is paid out ‘in service of patient healthcare’. Naturally employee salaries are included, since without their employees, insurance companies couldn’t function at all and no one would get health care. Ergo, the money spent to pay employees is indeed ‘in service of patient healthcare’. Further, no company I’ve ever heard of includes employees salaries as part of their profit - mainly because it isn’t!
So either you all already knew that and were disingenuously attempting to score points based on fallacy in the hope that the thread’s readers would be taken in by it, or you really are just that ignorant as to how business works and how profit is defined. I have no trouble at all believing either.
The logic that the employees’ salaries should count as providing care to patients is absurd. Take two companies- Company A spends 80% of revenue on providing health care, 16% on salaries and expenses, and returns 4% profit to shareholders. Company B spends 60% of revenue on providing health care, 37% on salaries and expenses, and returns 3% profit to shareholders. I can’t imagine anyone being foolish enough to think that Company A spends 96% of revenue on health care and that Company B spends 97%. There’s a reason why the ACA mandates 80% of revenues to actually be spent on health care- it’s the measure that matters. The profit is irrelevant.
Apart from the fact that most companies pay their employees as little as possible in order to be competitive with other companies and to maximize profits, the original claim was that evil American insurance companies are getting rich at the expense of the sick, when in fact by any standard measure of profitability they are realizing profits less than half of what most companies who make enough profit to stay in business realize.
Was that the claim? I thought the common observation is that here in the US, we spend lots of money on health insurance companies, when that’s pretty much a useless function that they’re doing.
I was responding to the following claim:
That statement was made by Martini Enfield on the U.S. healthcare system. He’s a more civil and polite poster than many here but the sentiment is pretty much the same, which is that American insurance companies are getting rich off of the sick, when the reality is that this is not so.
The American health care system is screwed up for so many folks because the incentives are all wrong, IMO. For a hard-working middle-class person who gets very sick, the insurance companies are not incentivized to try and give them the best possible care. They’re incentivized to give them the cheapest possible care that still meets their legal obligations. And those obligations might not prevent them from getting through loopholes to screw the patient to the point that his chance of dying goes up, or the family’s chance of going bankrupt goes up.
Other systems aren’t perfect either, but at least they can remove or minimize the profit motives. Whatever is most incentivized will be what is maximized – in the US, for most folks’ health care, the insurance company’s profit is what is most incentivized, and not the actual care of most folks.
For an alternative I have personal experience with in the US, look at active military health care. There is zero profit motive. It is entirely government run. Every active duty military member and their family gets top notch health care, with very little in the way of unusual waiting times or substandard care, and no chance of health bankruptcy.
That doesn’t mean that every government run system will be great, but it means that a government run system is entirely capable of providing excellent health care.
Perhaps this is a result of our military budget, which so many Democrats are always looking to cut.
For a more realistic view of how government operates outside the realm of active duty military people, take a look at V.A. hospitals and health care, which are widely reviled by those unfortunate enough to have to rely on them.
Further, look at Medicare, which, while most of its recipients are happy with it because it’s better than nothing, is still nowhere near on par with the health care active duty military gets.
And while we’re on the subject of active duty military expenditures, take a look at how wounded and maimed veterans are treated once they’re out of the military.
Take into account also the fact that most of the people in the military are young and in very good health compared with the American population at large.
It’s fallacious to look at how the country provides care for its active duty military (which the country depends on for its defense) and extrapolate from that that a government-run nationwide health care system would be similar.
It’s also fallacious to look at the VA, which largely covers older people who have experienced various forms of trauma and hard-living, and extrapolate that a government run nationwide system would be similar.
Rather, both systems show that government run systems can be run well, or run poorly. A well run government system can be better than the current US health care system for most folks. A poorly run government system can be worse. The fact that active military and their families, which include lots of sick kids and others who need lots of care, get great care, demonstrates that government run systems can be successful.
Which is all that I’m saying. A government run system, if run well, can work, and it can work better than the current US health care system, for most. If it’s run well. That shouldn’t be a particularly contentious assertion.
The trouble is that so few government run systems are run well.
Your religion*'s tenets are unsupported by the facts.
*Right-wingery, of course.
It’s rather obvious that Starving Artist is seriously trying to derail the thread.
Can everyone who wants to discuss American health insurance do that in a new thread and keep this one remotely on topic?
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Seconded. This dead horse has been beaten enough.
Yeah, damn that Starving Artist, always responding to questions and comments directed to him! What’s up with that shit? Make him knock it off! :rolleyes:
I don’t think “making lots of money for someone” is equal to “insurance companies are getting rich.” Insurance companies employing lots of people, and making a modest profit, is well within the scope of “making lots of money for someone,” especially considering that the someones they’re making money for are in functions that are basically an unneeded middleman.
Ya think??
Let’s bury the nag.
Wrong again. VA patients, both in- and out-patient, report satisfaction quite similar to satisfaction reported by patients of private-sector hospitals.
Contrary claims are generated by the “Make Americans Hate Their Government” clique, by exaggerating foibles. Even you would know this, Starving, if you learned how to Google (Hint: Don’t include “Tell me what I want to believe” in your search terms), or accessed news sites other than Right_wing_idiots_R_us.com.
I am quite satisfied with the VA. It’s my only medical care, and except for one time when I had to be transported from Sacramento to San Francisco by ambulance because the local hospital didn’t have the facilities to help me, everything has been great.
Where some people are concerned or involved, is it simple stupidity, or is it malice? I can’t be sure sometimes.
Yes - and it’s unnecessary!