Thread: A Health Care Scenario

I think people are confused about the public option. The public option will be something that you or your employer can choose to subscribe to. It will be affordable and not free, and the intent is for it to eventually pay for itself.

Some people use terms like ObamaCare and socialized medicine to describe the reform. You will not be forced to choose the public option. If you pay for Blue Cross / Blue Shield, then you can keep it. You'll still be able to see specialists and have elective surgeries.

The public option, IMHO, will allow the 45M+ uninsured American citizens to get health care. The public option will not deny care to you because you're a risk or have an existing medical condition. The private insurance companies will need to remain competitive to keep their customer base, which I can only imagine will result in them lowering costs and/or providing more benefits if they want to stay in business. It will also force them to compete against each other in all markets, instead of having regional monopolies like they currently do.

I still do not understand why anyone outside of the insurance companies would be against this. I don't think I've ever heard anyone tell me that they loved dealing with insurance companies.

Originally Posted by commiecat

I think people are confused about the public option. The public option will be something that you or your employer can choose to subscribe to. It will be affordable and not free, and the intent is for it to eventually pay for itself.
I think by adding the choice, it could hurt the system further. See my previous post.

Some people use terms like ObamaCare and socialized medicine to describe the reform. You will not be forced to choose the public option. If you pay for Blue Cross / Blue Shield, then you can keep it. You'll still be able to see specialists and have elective surgeries.

The public option, IMHO, will allow the 45M+ uninsured American citizens to get health care. The public option will not deny care to you because you're a risk or have an existing medical condition.
The addition of more customers to the system would be a good thing for sure. The more customers, the bigger the market and the more potential leverage each insurance Co has with hospitals on care pricing.
The private insurance companies will need to remain competitive to keep their customer base, which I can only imagine will result in them lowering costs and/or providing more benefits if they want to stay in business.
Alternatively, they could recognize an unprofitable situation and migrate away from the industry altogether. This might not be bad as long as we are left with some providers.
Also, it is hard for private companies to reduce costs when people are demanding services they might not need or are convinced to buy drugs that are more expensive to the insurance company than they need to be (i.e. getting a coupon from big pharma to make the generic and the name brand the same price or make the NB cheaper just so big pharma can keep market share and charge the insurance company. You may save $10 on the copay but the Insurance Co might pay 100's more for the name brand drug.)


It will also force them to compete against each other in all markets, instead of having regional monopolies like they currently do.
Those regional monopolies allow them to compete on price by virtue of having market share. This whole thing is counter intuitive.


I still do not understand why anyone outside of the insurance companies would be against this. I don't think I've ever heard anyone tell me that they loved dealing with insurance companies.
And when is the last time you heard someone say: "I love dealing with the Government?"

I hope that the effect of a public option is to increase the customer base significantly. If the Public Option had tons of leverage that it strips from the private market, it might drive private companies out and leave only hyper expensive boutique healthcare available to the very wealthy.

If, on the other hand, the public option enters the market and can manage to create its own market share from a blue ocean of non-insured, it might allow the government to demand pricing and see the benefit of price control over insurance control.

This is a tough issue.

-Rob

Originally Posted by sicboater

I hope that the effect of a public option is to increase the customer base significantly. If the Public Option had tons of leverage that it strips from the private market, it might drive private companies out and leave only hyper expensive boutique healthcare available to the very wealthy.

If, on the other hand, the public option enters the market and can manage to create its own market share from a blue ocean of non-insured, it might allow the government to demand pricing and see the benefit of price control over insurance control.

This is a tough issue.

-Rob

I guess we'll respectfully disagree on this. Options and competition, IMHO, will only help the patients/consumers. That's how capitalism works, and I'd compare it to how the USPS competes against UPS/FedEx. I'd be curious to see what UPS rates were if the USPS weren't around.

Regional monopolies aren't a good thing to me, especially regarding insurance. If you're a risk or have existing conditions, how is it good to have a single provider that is going to either charge you exorbitantly, or opt to not cover you at all?

There are few companies that I'd place below the government in regards to who I'd rather deal with, but the insurance companies are one of them. It's not like your Congressman is going to be taking your temperature. The nurses, doctors, specialists and hospitals will remain the same, it's the payment/reimbursement process that is getting changed.

The rest of the industrialized world has something similar. Currently American citizens pay the most for health care, yet have some of the worst statistics.

Originally Posted by commiecat

The rest of the industrialized world has something similar. Currently American citizens pay the most for health care, yet have some of the worst statistics.

That's exactly it. I mean, if we are realistic here, what is the worst that could happen from implementing an option? Millions of Americans uninsured because they can't afford it?

I don't know why people seem to think that by adding public healthcare the quality of the care will drastically drop immediately.

Originally Posted by commiecat

I guess we'll respectfully disagree on this. Options and competition, IMHO, will only help the patients/consumers. That's how capitalism works, and I'd compare it to how the USPS competes against UPS/FedEx. I'd be curious to see what UPS rates were if the USPS weren't around.
For your example to work, you would need someone between the providers of the service and the end user. If a third company were paying UPS, USPS, or FedEx on behalf of a group of end users. These third companies would only be able to negotiate good rates with the service providers if they had a great number of end users to funnel towards the mail companies. The middle man (insurance companies) are the wild card here that are changing the rules of free market economics in the healthcare. I totally agree that competition is good in the regular free market.

Regional monopolies aren't a good thing to me, especially regarding insurance. If you're a risk or have existing conditions, how is it good to have a single provider that is going to either charge you exorbitantly, or opt to not cover you at all?
It isn't clearly.

There are few companies that I'd place below the government in regards to who I'd rather deal with, but the insurance companies are one of them. It's not like your Congressman is going to be taking your temperature. The nurses, doctors, specialists and hospitals will remain the same, it's the payment/reimbursement process that is getting changed.
To be clear, I am not opposed to a public option per se, but it isn't the sole answer to the issue of cost.

The rest of the industrialized world has something similar. Currently American citizens pay the most for health care, yet have some of the worst statistics.
With out a doubt, we have a low value system.

How do we increase the value of healthcare in this country? That seems to be the question to me.

-Rob

Originally Posted by sicboater

How do we increase the value of healthcare in this country? That seems to be the question to me.

-Rob

It's my hope that this reform plan will do just that. The Heath Care Exchange will allow an individual to choose amongst all registered plans, and the public option will offer an inexpensive competitor.

If you're a customer or employer then you can choose the plan that's right for you and use the other plans as leverage. A big problem today is that some areas have either little or no competition so the private company has all the leverage. Like I've said upthread, there's nothing to really stop them from raising premiums or dropping coverage altogether on people who are a risk or have prior existing conditions.

As far as the public option goes, it will have low premiums. If the private companies want your business, they will either offer the same service at a lower cost, or increase their service/benefits to justify the price difference.

I think that both of those will give us more value for our health care dollars.

Originally Posted by sicboater

How do we increase the value of healthcare in this country? That seems to be the question to me.

-Rob

Giving control of health care to the same people that are running the United States Postal Service (guaranteed success)

Originally Posted by Navaja

Giving control of health care to the same people that are running the United States Postal Service (guaranteed success)

I'm not sure if you're making these sarcastic, flippant remarks just for giggles or if you're really that uninformed.

The government won't be controlling health care. Private insurance will still be owned privately and the current doctors and nurses will still be taking care of you. Why is this so hard to understand?

Originally Posted by commiecat

I'm not sure if you're making these sarcastic, flippant remarks just for giggles or if you're really that uninformed.

The government won't be controlling health care. Private insurance will still be owned privately and the current doctors and nurses will still be taking care of you.

Who's uninformed??

Originally Posted by commiecat

I'm not sure if you're making these sarcastic, flippant remarks just for giggles or if you're really that uninformed.

The government won't be controlling health care. Private insurance will still be owned privately and the current doctors and nurses will still be taking care of you. Why is this so hard to understand?

I'm not sarcastic, I'm realistic, remember when the cost of a stamp was $0.05, how is that the goverment aparatus couldn't control costs of the mail system but now they're attempting to tell the public that they'll control the cost of health care?

I believe you're the one who's uninformed. The only thing the government had to do to promote competition and lower cost would be allow insurance companies to operate across states, and control or eliminate the frivolous malpractice suits.

The goverment plan is based on three basic concepts:
a) Reduced benefits
b) Higher cost
c) Elimination of private insurance companies

Looks what's hapening to Medicare and Social Security, every year it's more expensive for the retirees (taxes, premiums, medications)

And one extra point, the majority of the people in the US, is against health care reform the way is being drafted unilaterally by the Democratic Party