Insurance is different because it’s basically legalized gambling. You’re betting something will happen against a company betting it won’t.
Statistics can be very accurate but too often we forget they are only as accurate as the people forecasting them.
And since all statistics can do is project, they aren’t firm so if someone says “X” it’s just as easy to find someone to say, “No it’s ‘Y’.”
Whatever profit the insurance industry makes is not relevant to anything. Whether this income is gouging is.
And not all insurance is equal for instance, you have to have auto insurance to drive. Now one can make the argument, “You don’t have to drive,” and while that is true, basically we live in a society that ouside of NYC, Chicago, Philly, DC, Boston and San Fran (and just the inner cities not the burbs) you need a car to function.
If you’re done propping up your beliefs with a single number you pulled out of your ass, has it occurred to you that an entire industry routinely funnelling 4% of revenue to a handful of easily identified people would be anything but covert, and a massive “Audit me!” sign for anyone with a functioning brain? I’d think that after the 5th or 6th time the IRS found someone under-reporting their income by 75%, even they might get suspicious.
I think we all realize it, but maybe don’t give it enough thought.
I know that insurance companies are required to keep a certain amount of funds reserved for possible payout. But how is that regulated, what form may that reserve take? Can it take the form of, say, rock solid triple A rated securities, for instance? The same sort of rock solid, triple-A rated securities that took a swan dive from the high board into a blazing river of shit?
Might that explain why the insurance companies are fighting this like the 300 Spartans at the Alamo? Because they are desperate to suck up some more money before anybody catches on? Because they cannot survive even the slightest downward tick in their revenue stream?
It certainly is about profit, to hear certain politicians speak. We need to keep the profit-mongering health care corporate villains honest. Add some real competition, and all the rest of that bullshit. Bravo to the OP. I have been saying the same thing, on this board and elsewhere, and the notion is rejected out of hand. Nope, they’re corporations. They must be making excessive, dishonest profits. You can see it in this very thread.
But to your points, then why not eliminate the barriers that the companies are forced to wrestle with? Why isn’t allowing competition the solution? And why will the Federal government writing the check suddenly make these conditions disappear?
I wonder how waste, fraud and abuse in medicare measures up compared to evil profits by evil insurance companies. Here is a list of some of the waste going on
The fact is doctors bill insurance companies higher rates for services in order to subsidize their medicare and medicaid patients. If the evil insurance companies went out of business, and the government becomes the single payer, you can expect the cost of the government plan to skyrocket.
I would think so too, it being the most prudent, cautious and sensible approach. Would that be the aforementioned rock solid, triple A rated securities, then?
The recommendation that liberals are making is to make the payment process more efficient - not reduce the number of payers. Reducing the number of payers might be one way to increase efficiency. You could also stream-line the payment process with open standards that all insurance companies would have to comply with and liberals would still be happy. The goal is efficiency and competition - not reducing payers. Industry consolidation doesn’t promote efficiency or competition. It promotes monopolistic behavior and bloat.
So you want the federal government to nullify state law? Since when are conservatives OK with trampling on state’s rights? This completely flies in the face of conservatism. And your second point about shutting down an industry doesn’t make a bit of sense.
You’re kidding, right? Liberals want only to streamline the system? No, they want a single payer system and elimination of evil insurance companies.
This is always the standard argument against increasing competition. How’s about the left tell us why it is a bad idea to standardize some minimum of coverage across state lines instead of complaining about the right being okay with trampling on state’s rights.
Because the right would scream that the Federal govt is exceeding it’s powers. I don’t know many liberals who would object to national standards if they included things like the right to sue insurance companies in your home state. The problem now is that there would be a “race to the bottom” with insurance companies setting up shop in some of our 3rd-world states that have lax regulations.
Yet somehow a public option or single payer would not be exceeding it’s powers? This would not trample on states’ rights? There SHOULD be barebone minimum coverage that is mandated and let insurance companies offer paid upgrades.
I missed when the dreaded liberals advocated elimination of insurance companies. Obama has never advocated it. It is the proper fix, but this is America and we don’t harm business. They horribly complicate the process and waste a ton of money that could be spent on health care. But apparently some people like it that way.
A couple states made laws that allowed banks and financial companies to have their way with consumers. That effects consumers across the land. Our credit card companies have based themselves where they have freedom to do what they want to their customers. It crosses state borders. If you want states rights, then keep the liberal financial laws in the state that allows them.
Something struck me the other day. The states are test labs for ideas. The conservative, bible belt states lag behind the more liberal northeast and northwest in almost every criteria. The health of citizens in conservative states is worse than average. If conservative ideology worked, wouldn’t you expect the reverse?
The same is true of other countries. If our system of private health is better than why are we behind every other industrialized country in the world in life expectancy, yet pay far more for healthcare?
Have you read the existing legislation or followed the national debate so far? Single-payer isn’t even being discussed as a possibility. It is not in the discussion whatsoever. I am not kidding. Liberals really do want to streamline the system and make it more efficient - reducing what we spend on health-care as a measure of GDP and making our whole country more competitive in the world market-place. We’re talking about what’s good for our economy here as a whole.
It’s not exactly an argument against increasing competition. It’s trying to wrap my head around conservatives’ (not all conservatives’) situational policy positions. I am totally for federal standardized minimum coverage requirements. I think it’d be a very good thing. The reason that particular question comes up is because the argument for a strong federal standard doesn’t jive with other conservative policy positions. And every time I bring that little fact up, no conservative has stepped up to answer why that is.