sallylou

Lighthouse, you don't get to pick and choose the procedures that you want. What is clearly not covered are cosmetic and medically unnecessary procedures.

Most of our health care spending is on the elderly. I don't have a problem with that. They are the people most likely to need care. Palliative care is also needed. It is very expensive for families, yet it is cheaper than hospital care.

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darkdog

But the insurance companies' profits are razor-thin (less than 3%). Premiums are going up because the cost of medical care is going up. If they charge you less, they either go bankrupt or have to make up for it by denying even more claims. You don't have a right to receive a product at a price that will drive the company out of business. The real question is what is driving up the costs of medicine. Anybody?

By the way, the insurance companies cannot stop anyone from going to the doctor and paying out of pocket. We would have that ability whether they existed or not. Also, if they are not keeping their end of the insurance contract, that's a call for more enforcement, not this Rube Goldberg boondoggle. However, I haven't seen any data about the extent to which this is a problem- only anecdotes.

My point is that except for fraud and problems of information asymmetry, insurance companies do not take away any options you otherwise would have- they only add to your existing set of options. It sounds like people are mad at the companies for not offering certain options that in reality are not economically viable.

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sallylou

You are uninformed.

Wonk Room Health Insurance Industry Fudges Data To Downplay Its Astronomical Profits

For specific companies profits see:

Fortune 500 2009: Industry: Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care

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darkdog

No I'm not. The data you provided proves it (and thank you for that ). The average profit for the companies on that list is around 2.4%. If you weight the companies according to their revenues (i.e. add up all their profits and divide it by the sum of all their revenues), then it's around 3.1%. Either way, it's not exactly profit-land and the increase of insurance premiums certainly does reflect the increase in medical costs.

The Think Progress article talks mostly about profits, administration costs, and marketing costs taken together along with CEO pay. Not exactly what I was talking about.

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jillio

If they are scratching and scraping to come up with a barely tolerable profit margin, where is all the money coming from for the lobbying?

Actually, medical costs go up because insurance premiums go up and put too many people out of reach of an affordable plan. They are forced to go uninsured, and doctors loose money on the patients that are unable to pay out of pocket at the time of treatment. Not to mention the catastrophic care costs that hospitals must eat as a result of revoked policies and denied claims. That lost revenue gets made up somewhere. Doctors and hospitals certainly don't write off billions in uninsured treatment that is not paid for. Suppliers don't donate goods to the doctors and hospitals. They must pay for goods in order to provide services. If they are not being reimbursed for a number of patients, the costs go up for those that are receiving reimbursement to make up for the deficit.

shel90

Then why are there doctors turning patients down if they dont have insurance?

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sallylou

Reread the article. It says that profits are 2 - 10%. The insurance industries statistics are misleading. Remember lies, damn lies and statistics.

Spending more on administration than actual health care is crazy! That's more money spent pencil pushers than doctors. Sorry, we can't cover your medical care but we're busy coding and processing your denial.

Look at those CEO salaries and you know that someone is raking in the big bucks. And it's not us! Because you and I are not in the club, friend.

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darkdog

I've never heard of that. I thought the problem was too many doctors are working pro bono for the uninsured and passing off the costs to everyone else. When I went without insurance, I would just call up the doctor and ask how much a visit costs out of pocket. I never got refused. If you're talking about surgery or some expensive procedure, it's not surprising they would want verification of ability to pay. That would be no different in a world without insurance, except in that world, you would have to be pretty rich or else you would have to finance the procedure and pay over months or even years, just like a car payment. In this world, insurance does provide that ability to pay for those who are not rich without making them take on debt to pay it off.

So I should only pay attention to one of your links and ignore the other, lest I be uninformed? Think Progress links to an NPR article which links to CNN Money for the year 2006. Back then, the average profit of companies on that list is 4.6%. The total profit to revenue ratio was 6%. Better than 3%, but still low as far as profit margins are concerned. That was then, this is now.

Reread the article. It says that relative to the past, the ratio of spending on medical care to administration and profits has gone down. It never claimed that they actually spent more on administration and profits than they did medical costs. The graph it provides from Price Waterhouse Coopers shows that as of 2006, 80% of revenues goes towards medical costs.

I've never cared about CEO pay any more than I care about the pay of professional athletes or movie stars. When billions of dollars and thousands of employees are at stake, you don't want to go on the cheap looking for a CEO. One wrong decision could cost the company billions and it doesn't make sense to risk billions just to save millions.

Likewise, the fact that I'm not in "the club" bothers me no more than the fact that I'm not among the ranks of professional athletes or movie stars. Perhaps if I wanted, I could have gone to business school and worked my butt off to prove myself a brilliant businessman worthy of having companies compete for my services at the tune of millions of dollars a year, but that's not the life I wanted.

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Royale

Canada's universal health care system is not exactly free FYI. It is a two-tiered system.

Based on my experience, the health care system run by federal/provincial government often run into too many problems. I have used some of private health care services in Canada and they have brought in better results and worthiness of money.

Royale

Are the illegal immigrants covered in the overhauled health care system?

If so, the Democrats are going to be in deep trouble for the 2010 U.S. Congressional Election.

Eve

darkdog, you are a breath of fresh air. It is nice to see that someone on this forum has the capability of thinking for themselves.

kokonut

Indeed, Eve.

Banjo

Yes, the public healthcare system isn't free since it's all paid for at taxpayers' expense. Private practices can benefit a lot of people. Especially when it comes to heart diseases, diabetes, cancer and many more.

However, if one was in need of assistance in an emergency, a public ER is the best option since they have people who can act fast and save people's lives, something not a lot of private practices are able to achieve since not everyone can afford it so they are lacking experience in that particular field. In fact, a public hospital is the best learning environment for a medical student since they have access to all kinds of diseases, injuries and such on a 24/7 basis.

A single second in decision-making makes all the difference in an emergency. The public healthcare system is far from perfect, so is the American healthcare. We shouldn't be comparing our healthcare to theirs because every healthcare system should be based on people's needs and they do vary from place to place.

Canada can and do benefit from private practices, but it also can benefit from public healthcare if they would just get their **** together and hire people with real qualifications, not some inexperienced bureaucrats to run the system.

Unfortunately, that's just a pipe dream at the moment.

sallylou

darkdog, I don't think that you understand that function on the graph. It's a ratio. Profits are simply gross income - expenses. So simple a cave man can understand it. Using this generally accepted accounting principle, the profit is 2-10% (which is 10 times what the insurance companies claim).

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kokonut

Let's see, if Communism is so good and such a benefit for their people, why force people to participate in it? Same goes with this health care package where if people do not buy health care they'll be fined heavily and jailed.

This is what Statism is all about. It always requires the use of force. It strips people of their liberty. It always comes with handcuffs. When you have provisions in the health care bill that has the word "shall" mentioned over 3,400 times, that means you must do and obey along with penalties of fines and jail time for the refusal to buy health insurance. Once that happens then that’s how we know statism coming.

Foxrac

I'm not say about Canada health care is free, it is all about government run health care, it don't always to be free so I already know that in very long ago.

Let me repeat to say, I know that public health care in Canada isn't free!!!

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Foxrac

No, they aren't covered.

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Foxrac

Excuse me, I'm not say about Canada health care is free but just say about government-run health care aka public so I know that public health care isn't free, it isn't new for me to know it.

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In Moto We Trust

Eve

Yet it is obviously too complex for a liberal...

sallylou

Eve, you are rude and arrogant. It really doesn't lend credibility to your position.

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Eve

Just as it hasn't lended credibility to you, jillio, Jiro, et al. Afterall, it was you who threw the first stone by inferring that darkdog was incapable of interpreting the information you posted (at least not in the way YOU wanted it to be interpreted).

rockin'robin

Say what?.....Eve?....Nah...looking back I can see the true rude and arrogant one. Her "position" is fine with me, SallyLou.

sallylou

It was a joke. Some of us do that around here. If you venture off of the political threads and just chat sometime, you'll find that real people exist here who have their own personalities and senses of humor. Then again, you don't seem like a very sociable person.

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Eve

On the contrary, I am quite sociable. I have plenty of friends outsde of the political threads. This just seems to be what has drawn my interest at the moment. And despite my capacious sense of humor, I find very precious little of your back-handed comments to be giggle-worthy.

sallylou

Sarcasm and irony appeal to a different crowd. Not everyone gets it.

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souggy

You know that Jiro is considered as a conservative among the liberal ADers?

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Jiro

and also I don't support this health care bill. plus - I don't recall saying darkdog is incapable of interpreting the information. It is understandable that my AD name is easily confused with Jillio

Eve - you'll have to show to me that I've said such thing about darkdog.

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Eve

Now that's just sad.

When I said "you", it was meant as a singular toward sallylou, not plural toward you or anyone else. The comment regarding you (plural) was that rudeness and arrogance don't lend credibility to your position.


Yes, there has been mention that you could possibly be perceived as her "lap dog". I don't know you well enough to make that deduction, myself.

souggy

Not sad. He's just playing the Devil's advocate.

There are many conservatives here that are on ADers, but they're well-liked because they can play the Devil's advocates. As soon there's a void missing, another conservative will pop in to fill in that void.

ie. When debating about gun rights, no one else posted-- so Jiro filled in that void.

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sallylou

I would love to continue this little argument but its' time for me to be fearless cub scout den leader. Duty calls. Ya'll have a good evening.

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