mrswdk wrote:TA1LGUNN3R wrote:The problem with health insurance is the same problem with college tuition. You have private or non-gov't entities being allowed to exploit the much larger fiscal resource of the federal loan/insurance company rather than an individual's measly finances, which they inevitably do, and over time they'll just continue to charge more because they can get away with it. It's a feedback loop.
I have no idea how healthcare commissioning works in the US but are you saying that healthcare providers delivering government-funded healthcare are allowed to charge the government however much they feel like? Do public commissioners not set targets for minimum delivery level/maximum cost?
Idk, maybe they do. That's a useless factor, though. I'm sure a target will be set, then in a couple of years, when everyone's adjusted, they'll up the target to account for increases in cost. The point being the same- without tying the cost to the average wage of the consumer, costs will inevitably get higher, where in any other field costs lessen over time.
To illustrate with an anecdote, my father had knee surgery after hyper extending his knee. He has gov't insurance because he works for the gov't, so the procedure was covered. For a simple outpatient procedure that took only a couple hours, his insurance was billed like $40k-50k. When he asked for an itemized receipt, which they didn't want to give him, the cost from the surgery itself, including anesthetics, doctor time, etc, or all costs related to the surgical department, was about 4 or 5 grand. The rest was for "administrative cost" and "room cost," of which he stayed maybe an hour or two.
waauw wrote:2dimes wrote:One problem that I'm not sure they can solve is, in order to have a functioning system in place they need some savings or what ever you want to call a reserve of funds.
Eventually in theory you have to have some people paying more into it than they are using. That extra funding is where the payment to the hospital/doctors comes from to pay for an expensive surgery needed by someone that can't afford to just pay for said surgery. Hence the socialism label.
That socialist part is what modern westernersonly americans hate. No one wants to be the guy paying $100/month and not going to the doctor. In order to pay for the guy who also pays $100/month and gets a $300,000 cancer treatment.
The system needs at least 58 people paying the $100/month to cover a $300000 bill per year before administration costs.
Instead everyone is thinking, "I need to get my money's worth here." As soon as they are signed up, off to the doctor they go, who then has to tell the patient, "There is not enough money in reserves of Obamacare yet to pay for your ingrown toe nail treatment."
Fixed it for you bro. The rest of the western world seems to be doing just fine. No mass protests against social security.
Doing fine? Isn't the NHS failing, with u.k. far right politicians wanting to privatize it?
-TG
