Sometimes the most basic questions are the most powerful. Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) appeared on Joe Scarborough's show on MSNBC to talk about his "Medicare for all" alternative to the omnibus healthcare reform bill rumbling through various committees (which now looks in danger of dropping any 'public' option).
Weiner asked Scarborough what value the private insurance companies bring to the provision of healtcare services.
Joe couldn't answer. Instead he dodged and tried to divert Weiner by claiming that he was trying to foster a government take-over of all of healthcare.
Weiner pointed out that Medicare pays for privately provided services through private-sector doctors and hospitals and labs, and that's what it would continue to do if expanded to cover everyone. All that would happen is that the provision of all health insurance would have the much lower administrative costs of Medicare, saving consumers and taxpayers billions.
Weiner kept at it, asking the question over and over until Joe finally broke down and admitted that they added nothing by saying that it was really just an ideological preference to have private profit involved in providing insurance services.
I've never seen a conservative so flumoxed. I encourage you all to ask this simple question in your debates and discussions. If you are one of the doughty conservatives who hangs about this nest of liberalism, maybe you can answer Weiner's question in the comments?
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My Government has never done anything that did not turn a profit for me and my Health Insurance.
I love my helicopters and my 747; I want everyone to have accress to my Helicopters and my 747 !!
To To your first: How could the government possibly be more efficient? I’ll not get into the economics of it, I think I’ve covered that pretty well. I’ll just ask this. Why would the pharmaceutical companies be giving the government upwards of $200 million dollars to support health insurance reform? I thought that that which corporations wanted was bad? And there you go with the big words again. Do you think that makes you seem more intelligent? Why is it wicked to suggest that people pay their own way?
To your second. I suggest you actually check. In under a minute I located 7 different companies offering health insurance in Maricopa County. In another 30 seconds I located 7 different companies in Pima County.
As to contracts, if you aren’t reading the entire thing, that’s your loss. I read the fine print of every contract I sign. It’s there for a reason. I know what I’m signing. If you’re too lazy to read every word, you have no room to complain when you find out you don’t like what the contract says. You are correct, you can’t negotiate the terms, but you CAN choose your policy and coverages. If you don’t read the policy terms, you are making an uninformed choice and deserve whatever you get.
Only a handful of those you locate will actually issue a policy in any particular county. Health insurance is not always a state-wide market. And I don’t think that Americans are too stupid, I think they are too busy to bother. When is the last time you read the entirety of a form contract you were asked to sign? You can’t negotiate terms with a health insurer, so what’s the point of reading the fine print?
No difference: we both want to get rid of them. The difference is that I would use the government as a more efficient replacement. You would just go with some sort of cash-and-carry method of financing, which to me seems both primitive and deeply iniquitous.
I guess my previous reply was un-needed.
You do think American’s are too stupid to read and understand what they buy and need government hand-holding. Don’t project your own inadequacies on the rest of us.
BTW, a 2 second google search reveals that there are at least 9 health insurance providers in Arizona. If other states don’t have that choice, that is a state issue, and not a Federal one.
You clearly suffer from reading comprehension.
I suggested that everyone should pay their own way, except in cases of catastrophic injury or disease, at which point personally purchased insurance would kick in.
How does that equate to no one seeing a Dr., and heading back to the 19th century? Are you suggesting that no one should have personal responsibility? I’m also not real sure that antediluvian means what you think it does. Since it seems you intended to use it in the context of a return to the 19th century, it seems rather odd to use a Christian term that literally means the time before the flood.
I find it extremely absurd that you think that people are too stupid to care for themselves. I ran through my current insurance situation. Are you suggesting that darn near every American can’t afford to do what I do? Or are you suggesting that they aren’t smart enough, and need government to hold their hands?
How, exactly, would they be covered for free? Free for them, but not for you and me.
In order to give something to someone for free, you must first TAKE it from someone else. I’m not interested in you sticking your hands in my pockets.
Out of curiosity, how many unemployed people do you personally cover? And I don’t mean with tax money. I mean out of your own pocket. Have you put your money where your mouth is?
It’s like 60-80k total, worldwide. Of which, I can back up at least 20k that come here as opposed to the other way around. Its a somewhat secretive statistic.
I think you and I agree on the fact that insurance companies are the problem, we just disagree on the solution.
Exactly, most counties in the United States have only 2 or 3 major providers of health insurance.
There is very little benefit to the consumer from the much-vaunted choices of plans offered because of this oligopolist market structure. Indeed, most people have no choices getting their coverage from the employer.
If you want to buy an individual plan the costs are high and coverage is poor and very confusing to the consumer, frequently having policies, limits and exclusions running to hundreds of pages.
The most notable effect of these choices is consumer confusion and market inefficiency. Remember how confused and angry folks were over the Medicare drug supplement plans? I frankly don’t want choice in healthcare, I want to be assured that the coverage I buy will actually insure me should I get ill. Simple as that.
Saying that the complexity and diversity of health insurers’ offerings promotes consumer choice is like saying that the federal tax codes’ length and complexity fosters taxpayer choice.
Well then, why are you wasting everyone’s time with half-measures? We should return to the 19th century where the first time you are likely to see a doctor is the day you die. Your notion is so absurd and antediluvian that you clearly live in your own little slice of reality.
You are right. It would be much easier to simply allow anyone to buy into medicare at a rate that allows us to cover children and unemployed people for free.
Actually it’s more like 60 to 80K. But many more than that go for “medical tourism” trips abroad from here because the cost of care is so much lower elsewhere and the quality is just as good, if not better. Some employers have even adopted a practice of offering employees a cut of what they save by outsourcing expensive medical procedures overseas.
Some interesting info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism
Oh, and the main driver of the growth of medical tourism here in the states is a desire of providers not to deal with insurance companies. Wealthy foreigners pay cash.
I’ve never had a choice in any insurance plan outside of single or family. In AZ some 60-70% of people not on government-run heath care are with one of two companies. That isn’t a choice, that is an oligopoly. And the oligopolists are taking it straight to the bank…in a Rolls Royce Bentley.
Eli:
Choosing not to choose is not the absence of choice.
I firmly believe that all health insurance for day to day to stuff should be eliminated. All should pay their own way. Only catastrophic insurance should be offered.
See my comment to David on “A genuine question about Medicare”.
#1: I submit that other countries have a much lower cost of medicine for 2 reasons. First, we subsidize nearly all of the research. Second, as I said, I believe our cost is so high BECAUSE of insurance.
#2: I never said only Canadians, and while difficult, I can show that AT least 20,000 foreigners come here each year. We also have hospitals with private airports solely to serve foreigners.
In fact though, most people with private insurance get it through our employers, so we in fact have no choice. Either I get the insurance plan that my employer offers (my employer has about 150 employees who are eligible for insurance so they only offer one plan) or I can decline it but if I decline it then the portion that my employer would pay towards it, they don’t pay and I would still have to pay the entire cost of a plan myself– so in fact there is no choice on the part of many, if not most, individuals.
It is true that my employer has a choice every time they renegotiate the health insurance contract (in fact that’s another problem with private insurance– my employer has contracted with three different insurers and on at least one occasion I had to switch doctors as a result.) However, ‘choice’ on the part of my employer doesn’t particularly help me because the priorities that my employer has in choosing a plan don’t necessarily coincide with the priorities of the employees (especially if the issue is cost vs. coverage.)
It is true that I and my co-workers could seek to have a ‘choice’ if we chose to form a collective bargaining unit which would negotiate to constrain the employer and prevent them from just choosing ‘lowest cost.’ However, my experience with a union is that the priorities of the negotiating team for the union, while more in line with the employees than the priorities of management, still don’t always reflect the priorities of the employees (and then you may save a few bucks on health insurance premiums but you have to turn around and pay it in union dues.)
So yeah, this is a good question. Because the truth is that for most people, there could be a million private insurance companies out there and we still have no choice.
Wouldn’t it be so simpler to just go the Medicare for All route? None of this health insurance trading markets and public options junk. Just a simple clean message that could be implemented much more simply.
Brice – there are two significant problems with your theory. The first being that countries that have national systems have lower costs and lower rate of cost increase than the US. The second is that the since 1970 Medicare costs have risen at an average annual rate of 8.8% and private insurance premiums have risen at an annual rate of 9.9%. I fail to see how your theoretical claims are backed up by the real world.
A minor point, but significant for its rhetorical purposes – there are not tens of thousands of Canadians coming to the US for health care. All studies I have seen indicate the number is extraordinarily small to be statistically insignificant.
IMO, it’s not a valid question. It wouldn’t matter if Private Insurance brought zero the provision of health care (Which I still don’t understand why we focus on that. We aren’t talking about health care reform, we’re talking about Health INSURANCE reform) The fact is, the Federal Government does not have the Constitutional authority to collect any tax money to provide it.
But, if you want to go about answering the question, it is this. Private insurance brings choice to the market. When I was looking for insurance, I looked at close to 100 different plans, from I don’t know how many companies; all offering different doctors, different plans, different premiums, and different deductibles. In the marketplace, private insurance has to compete. They can compete on price and service. They also have to be responsible for their actions.
If the government provides everyone’s health insurance, we will have no choice and no one will be responsible when mistakes are made. Further, with complete government control of the market, you will no longer be able to seek private care. Right now, even if your insurance denies your claim, you can still access private care and pay your own way. This is why tens of thousands of Canadians and Europeans come here every year for health care. It’s because we have the BEST health care system in the world.
Now, I am all for insurance reform, although I think what I would do would be different than what you would do. I would eliminate health insurance completely, except for catastrophic insurance. Health care is very expensive here BECAUSE of insurance. Let me try and explain. Right now, no one cares how much a Dr. visit costs, they aren’t paying, so who cares, right? If we had to pay out of pocket, we might actually shop around for a Dr. that provided good service at a good price.
A parallel would be this: Let’s say your employer offered you a company car. The stipulation being that you had to pay for insurance, maintenance, and fuel. You would most likely buy a reliable, efficient, low cost to insure vehicle. Now, let’s put it in terms of health insurance. Now your employer offers you a car, with the stipulation being you had to only pay the first $100 of any car of your choosing. They would cover all other expenses. Would you still pick the reliable, efficient car; or would you pick a convertible Ferrari? Be honest, you know your choice would be different. Why? Because you aren’t footing the bill, so the money doesn’t matter.
This is the problem with our current insurance situation. No one knows how much anything costs, and they don’t care. Government provided insurance for everyone will only greatly magnify this situation.