There's too much political pressure for governments to spend any money they have access to. When bad times come or big losses occur, it comes straight out of the taxpayer's pocket. Taxes rise and they don't come down again.

As a real-world example, look at UK's National Insurance. It was supposed to be a government insurance against injury and unemployment, but it's effectively just a tax. The government doesn't retain your contributions in case you become unemployed in 20 years - they spend it immediately.

As MattO says, 20% is nothing like the profits in many other industries.

Can you please, just once, make an actual cogent argument supported by sources rather than just vomiting up posts saying "OH NO SOCIALISMS!", pretty please?

At my company (a small company), they have a 2k yearly deductable, a couple hundred dollar prescription deductable, and the rates are close to $600 a month for a family of 3. Now, keep in mind the average pay for a person here is around $7 an hour....basically they work full time just to pay for insurance. Absolutely ridiculous to me.

Just add in some incentives for a healthy lifestyle somehow (haven't figured that out yet), and we're set.

The other thing that no one ever seems to bring up in this conversation: [www.kff.org]

The US already pays on average, per person (not per insured person, per person) approximately double what countries who have universal health care pay.

Could it be a coincidence that our insurer wanted a 43% increase in premiums to renew our policy later that year? I'm sure it didn't help that in the same year we had another co-worker survive a brain aneurysm. Neurosurgery, four weeks in the hospital, and prolonged physical therapy can't be cheap.

Ultimately, the company was able to buy a policy from a different insurer with only a 35% premium increase, though it was coupled with a switch to a high-deductible plan. That has been the pattern for the past 10 years anyway: pay more for less coverage every damned year.

Nothing surprising here . Disappointing but surprising no .

There are so many problems with health care that to blame it all on the insurance companies is ridiculous . How ever they are a huge part of the problem .

Everyone is just trying to find ways to throw money at at these companies while the insurance companies are keep on looking for ways to keep more of that same money for themselves . In the meantime you still have doctors charging hundreds of dollars for a 10 minute visit . Then you have the medical clerks working on ways to code and bill the insurance company and patient as to get the maximum reimbursement entitled or not .

It's all a game where the only thing the players worry about is who is going to pay rather than what and why you are going to pay .

Nobody wants to insure sick people.

FWIW, we had one year with a lot of claims (a mandated procedure that about 5 people elected). The next year our premium quote tripled. We changed carriers. Tell me insurance companies don't purge and I'll get you an account with the Madoff Investment Company.

@Trai_Dep: "Do you accept competitors coupons?"

"Only on Tuesdays. Can you wait?"

Meant to say this before:

PERSONAL WEALTH?

Man, I wish I had some wealth to give up. I think the real question is "How much personal debt am I willing to rack up?"

If the "Public Option" was like Medicare, I can see why private insurance companies would be terrified.

I think I'd be willing to give up as much for healthcare as I'm currently being forced to give up for the military, intelligence community, no-bid contracts, and all the other graft that the more right-wing contributors think is as mandatory as the social programs a left-winger.

At the time this scared couple is heading for the emergency room they have no choice. They can't shop around, they can't negotiate and they can't threaten to take their business elsewhere.

A single mother of two makes the decision to stop taking medication for her heart and blood pressure. She has lost her job and her insurance and can no longer afford both the medication and food, so she chooses food. A few months later, she has a stroke and is taken to the emergency room where they work on her for an hour and a half before she dies. Because she is uninsured, we are all paying for her trip to the emergency room through higher premiums and/or higher billings, but it would have been much cheaper to simply provide her with a lifetime supply of her medication.

I can understand people not wanting some kind of socialized insurance system in this country, but I simply cannot understand how they can make the argument that "it won't work." Every other industrialized country in the world has a system that provides universal coverage and they all cost less than ours and get measurably better results. It's like these people are saying, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

If you don't want the government involved, then how about a system like they have in the Netherlands? Everyone gets insurance from a private insurer, but they are very heavily regulated (can't turn people down, can't drop people, can't deny claims for pre-existing conditions, etc.)

Capitalism and health insurance do not mix. In a voluntary system the healthiest people and those who can't afford a policy will choose to go without insurance. The next year, rates go up and even more people either can't afford it or decide they're healthy enough to go without. As the healthiest and poorest leave the pool, the incentives for the insurers are to reduce coverage, deny claims and drop the sick people that cost them the most.

It's not about them, it's about him, and that's where the problem lies.

Too many people in this country have myopic tunnel vision.

I have a doctor friend, too.

He's not poor. But that's because he's paid off his debt.

Also, no, not every doctor will come out of school in debt. Grants, family money, and scholarships certainly help.

But not everyone gets that. Have you conducted a thorough investigation of your friends' bank accounts? Do you really know how much they have, or if they are in debt? What if they live outside their means?

@superberg:

"Doctors come out of medical school hundreds of thousands in debt"

I have a few doctor friends, and for some strange reason, not one of them is poor.

Not saying they are overpaid, just saying not one of them is even close to being poor.

"We always encourage our clients to compare our proposed rates to those available from other carriers"

What a beautiful business model, send potential clients to the competition first.

So everytime I went to a Nissan dealer, how come he never told me I should compare Nissan to Ford and GM cars before picking them?

Cigna's actions very obviously say we no longer want you as clients because you negatively impact our bottom line, no if, and or but about it.

Show me where in the constitution it says it isn't. What about public education? Should we get rid of that? The fire department?

Besides, if we're going to use literal translations of two-centuries-old text as gospel, what about the Declaration of Independence? "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" can be interpreted in so many ways.

I suffered a sudden,near death illness that would have bankrupted me, and denied me future coverage under the for-profit system.

Yes, my taxes are higher, but my monthly extended health is $6.99.

The problem has been created by insurance companies, drug companies, doctors, hospitals, government and us as consumers. We all need to be willing to come to the table in a true spirit of compromise. And as yet, I don't see this happening. Everyone seems to want to accuse everyone else of being the problem but not accept any of the blame themselves.

The only way you might have a point, is if you can show how market forces apply to ALL kinds of healthcare. Explain how it's possible for someone suffering a heart attack to shop around and thus take advantage of market forces.

If you cannot do it, then you must concede that at least some parts of healthcare are inelastic and therefore cannot respond to market forces. Which was my point.

[www.npr.org]

It's just so sad that there are people in 3rd world hell holes who get better medical coverage than us, and for free. All the while we can't have it here because people are so stupid that they'll believe and parrot anything the right wing tells them.

The ones I hear a lot are "Duuuur, it'll be like da DMV! You really want da govenments runnin' da doctor's office like dey run that, duuurrrrr!" and "Heyuk, Rush sez that if ya need a surgery, they'll make ya wait like 3 whole months!"

Hey retard, hate to tell you but we have one of the longest wait times for medical care in the devolped world. It's already like the damn DMV, and because of the archaic system we already have in place.

Stop believing their lies! They have stakes in the insurance industry and/or they're watching out for their rich buddies. All the politicians already have free health care paid for by our taxes. If it's good for them, then why not us?

We don't have the best health care in the world. We don't even have adequate health care. At the most, we're just barely hovering over "The Absolute Worst" health care system on the planet.

But I don't have to tell you. If you haven't found out already, then you will. Everyone gets sick, and eventually the people that defend the defunct system will get sick too. And when they do, and their insurance company comes up with some random reason to drop them, and they can't get the care they need, then they'll know I was right. Or if their insurance company will only clear them for the most basic sub-standard care after they've paid into it for a life time, then they'll know I was right. It's inevitable...

People's health should not be a business...

Less than is being given up for the current system, eventually.

US PUBLIC spending on health care is already higher than TOTAL spending for many countries with UHC.

Now as much as I enjoy seeing Canadians debunk the Republican & Libertarian myths about the Canadian health care system, by interjecting yourself into this debate, you keep the focus on the demonized Canadian system.

I'd much rather hear from Germans or Japanese or French or Koreans than from the English-speaking countries that the right has devoted its attention to portraying as nightmare dystopias.

RE: companies having power over health:

Not just the insurance companies, people's employers.

Labor is less mobile...people are less free to attempt to change jobs (or to try and start businesses) because it could mean losing their health insurance.

Naturally, Capital is in favor of this.

What does that have to do with how the billing is settled?

And just in case anyone is thinking that sounds high what with the commonly cited 30 percent administrative costs figure...much of those claims consist of administrative cost on the provider's side, too (a lot of which they wouldn't need if they weren't dealing with a dozen different recalcitrant insurers).

@MattO:

Freemarket whatever, a better question is, should companys have that much power over the overall health and wellbeing of a person, or people in general? There is something wrong with making money off gambling with a persons health to make a profit.

I agree with your last paragraph the most, costs need to be cut, from insurance, and from clinics. There is something terribly wrong where I can get the same if not better care in a country such as China or Thailand and pay 1/10th the price without insurance.

"Government forces larger companies to provide health insurance to employees. Whether it makes sense in a big-picture economic sense, they have to do it."

Factually incorrect. Companies provide health insurance because they receive a tax benefit for doing so. No government agency rquires employers to offer health insurance.They do it because they can raise (or lower) their packages to be competitive for new hires. (You will notice that companies that are not too choosy often offer no benefits at all).
Employer provided/subsidized health insurance only became widely available after WWII ,when unions demanded extra compansation to sidestep government wage and price controls. Wages were controlled ,benefits were not. Like a matastasized tumor , they have now become a major cost of doing business for most companies that offer them. (At one time ,Chrysler's largest vendor was not a steel or aluminum company , but Blue Cross). That is why you now see big business pushing to dump these costs on the taxpayers if possible.

@sirwired: It's a scam. No doctor under a socialized plan will deny you care. However, just like our current system, they may not pay out the full amount. But here's the question, who would you rather make that decision: A not for profit government agency or a for profit corporation who's primary means of profitability is denying claims.

@I Love New Jersey: We'll we've been trying it your way for a long time and look where it got us? Excellent (top notch, even) care for those who are wealthy. For the rest of us, either we get great care, and it bankrupts us so we can't get any more. Or, we get none at all.

Should only rich people get their fires put out? OK I admit, a lot of snark, but I think that basic medical care is a right, not a privilege. And people fail to see that we pay for these costs one way or another. They're just not on any single balance sheet, they're spread out in bankruptcies, obesity rates, people forgoing care until they can't wait anymore, lost productivity at work, etc.

How is this different, or worse, than what my insurance company does already? The entire premise of the commercial is bogus.

What is so bad about "socialized medicine" anyway? The other developed countries that have it spend far less of the GDP on health care, live longer, and are healthier by pretty much any measure. Something must work pretty damn well...

Errr... if Medicare had 20% overhead for payout of insurance claims, it would be a scandal. What value is private insurance providing that isn't provided, for much less money as overhead by Medicare already?

I think one of the key rationales for a single-payer system is the duplicative administrative costs associated with maintaining multiple payors. Administrative costs constitute a higher portion of health-care spending in the US than almost anywhere else in the world.

One of the other points that people fail to realize is that though the current system doesnt work for 1/6 of the population, it does work for 5/6.

Then why do we lag behind pretty much all industrialized nations in key indicators of health? And that uninsured 1/6 of the population includes many of the people who actually need serious payouts. Insurance company dumping means we the taxpayers are already footing the bill, so why not bite the bullet?

So your solution is that we all move to Thailand?

No, seriously, how do we make that happen. Doctors come out of medical school hundreds of thousands in debt, and medical equipment is incredibly expensive. There are reasons medical care costs as much as it does. Part of that is the mess of insurance companies, but much of it is also the cost of doing their specific brand of business.

"Make it more like Thailand" is not enough of an answer.

And how do you propose to fix the current system? What will you force on the private insurers? How will you ensure they won't find a way around it and continue to screw people over? We can't just wave a finger at them and say "Stop it."

As long as there are things like "pre-existing conditions" and ways to refuse coverage, they will. They are not in this to help people, they are in it to profit. If they could deny every single claim, they would.

Take, for example, a homosexual male. They have to have maternity effects included in their insurance, because of health mandates. Are they EVER going to get a woman pregnant? No.

Actually, yes, they could. It happens a lot more than you think. Also, some states allow them gays to adopt, so there's that.

Whether it should be government mandated can be debated. Whether the situation you presented happens cannot.

The idea that "free markets" can drive down healthcare costs, however, is fallacious. Aside from some elective or optional procedures, healthcare is inelastic. If you need it, you need it, and you need to get it where you can get it. Market forces work only when the consumer has an opportunity to "shop around." That opportunity does not exist when (e.g.) you're in the throes of a heart attack. That opportunity also is restricted in cases of chronic illness requiring periodic checkups, e.g. hypertension requiring quarterly checks; it would not be wise to jump from doctor to doctor based on pricing, because care will be less consistent, not to mention you're leaving records in many different places.

As soon as we dispense with the idea that market forces can drive down healthcare costs, the sooner we can move on to solutions that will ... and once we've made healthcare affordable, we can free ourselves collectively of the shackles of the medical insurance industry.

There's that fag talk we talked about.

Government is already messing in health care, we don't have a free market system.

For example, the government MANDATES certain things which ALL POLICIES must have.

Like Drug/alcohol rehabilitation. Now, if I want to not have this as part of a plan, but cannot, the government forces me to have it. Do I drink? No. Do I do drugs? No. But I'm paying for people who do and a policy I will never use.

Take, for example, a homosexual male. They have to have maternity effects included in their insurance, because of health mandates. Are they EVER going to get a woman pregnant? No. But they have to pay for it.

This list goes on and on. And that's why insurance is so high.

What government should do is fix the problems witht he current system not create a brand new system.

@Snarkysnake:

i definitely think that some of the reform things they are talking WILL NOT WORK.....i work for an insurance company, and I for one am worried for my job - so i understand I am a bit biased....but the thing is, the insurance companies are not THAT bad like everyone says either....people fail to look at the amount of money is paid back out in claims.....just like how the news is biased on everything, the world is baised against the insurance companies. i can tell you that from every dollar paid in premiums, over 80 cents are paid back out in claims...

if you look at the "margin" insurance companies make, and you compare it to the margin in retail, you would be amazed at how little they really make - it is just on such a large scale it looks like a lot of money.

One of the other points that people fail to realize is that though the current system doesnt work for 1/6 of the population, it does work for 5/6.

I am sure i will start a flame war here - i do think there are changes that need to be made in the insurance industry....and i do think there are costs that need to be cut...however, i think people need to put things into perspective as well.

It doesn't justify the health care reforms being proposed because they're being offered by Obama instead of McCain.

No, seriously. Haven't you figured out how politics work? It all boils down to Jets vs. Sharks.

i said 'wait, i just signed up two months ago'

and the rep said 'it shows right here it expired on october first of this year'

and i said 'THAT'S the date it started'

she looked a little more closely and said 'yes, your policy was activated october 1st of this year. it ended october 1st of this year.'

i just remained silent for a minute until she said 'OH!'
it still took two weeks to fix it.

Anyone ?