Comments on: What Advocates of Public Plans Don’t Know About Public Plans

By: Justine

Justine — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:52:05 +0000

You don’t seem to understand the bill, dear. No one is ofrfieng socialized medicine. The government doesn’t control hospitals or pricing. Pricing is controlled by the hospital administrators and HMO’s. You should really read the bill instead of freaking out about issues not included or suggested.

By: Don Levit

Don Levit — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:37:25 +0000

Richard:
Excellent points.
I believe it is a bit simplistic to blame insurance companies to a great extent for premium increases.
Much of the literature I have read suggests that premiums have increasesd fairly commensurate with the costs and utilization of care.

We must first look at ourselves when assessing blame.
Unfortunately, the mirror is uaually the last place we look when peering inside the human heart, which can be a bit tricky.

There is one huge fundamental flaw in the way health insurance premiums are priced: they pay for only the current year’s expenses.
Pay-as-you-go is not the way for paying for liabilities that increase with age.
It doesn’t work for term life insurance, and works even less efficiently for medical insurance.
Don Levit

By: Richard Styvaert

Richard Styvaert — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:39:26 +0000

A comment to Jennie Fielder: Morningstar an investment evaluation service ranks the health care industry 87th in profitability with a average profit margin of about 3.5%. How you make the Grand Canyon leap to 25% or a quater of every premium dollar needs to be explained before you assert it again.

But of course, in his last talk to a joint session of Congress on HealthCare Reform— Obama railed on the monopoly power of one health care provider in Alabama, who he asserted had over 90% of the health care business. Factually that was latter shown to be only 75% percent, and the particular health insurer had high ratings from the premium payers according to a state agency in Alabama who conducted the survey. Obama’s fast and loose concern for the truth did not stop there. State authorities in Alabama and others pointed out that the profit margins in the latest reporting years in Alabama–for the so called monopoly health provider [see Obama's own words] was 6/10th of one percent. Obama needs more people like you making the [false] case for his version of health care reform to insure its failure.

But the biggest farce is the demand by Obama for “waiver of pre-existing conditions”. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could present ourselves to our auto or fire insurance carrier with either a completely destroyed auto or the smoking remains of our completely destroyed home and demand an application form to apply for insurance and a reimbursement check on the grounds that Obama is president, so you must accept our request to process a casualty loss claim despite the previously existing condition of either our wiped out auto or the smoking remains of our home. Socialist Utopia here we come!

By: Jennie Fiedler

Jennie Fiedler — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:41:06 +0000

The problem with private insurers is they keep too much for themselves. I do not like that almost a quarter of every premium dollar I pay goes into their pocket, when a decade ago they only got to keep about 2%. My parents never had huge medical bills, because they had insurance. My costs go up by the hundres and sometimes into the thousands of dollars every year. Coverage decreases, while premiums and out of pocket expenses increase. I think its corporate and investor greed, not sick people that drive costs up and this whole mess could be cleaned up by either going single payer and forcing health insurance companies out of business, or reenacting consumer protection laws that force insurance companies to service their customers first, themselves second. Either way would work for me, I’m just sick of seeing so much of my already modest yearly income going towards private jets, bonuses, exhorbitant executive salaries and huge Wall Steet payouts instead of paying my health claims.

By: Roy Patterson

Roy Patterson — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:09:30 +0000

The first thing we need to do, to reform health care, is to get the lawyers out of health care. Fear of Malprectice lawsuits has forced doctors to run un-necessary tests, x-rays,and MRI’s, just to protect themselves from lawsuits.
The first thing Congress need to is to pass Malpractice reforms. Limit health care lawsuits to $250,000 per case, like in California. Doctors, then can practice medicine instead of law.

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:18:16 +0000

Of course the public option and the 8% penalty tax for businesses that did not cover their employees was the means of migrating more people into the public option. It is not really an option. It is the proxy for single payer. The net efffect of an expanded Medicare system is to make public utilities out of the commercial insurers. The real point of the fight is that the administration attempted to run a 500 billion haircut to Medicare and they expected the AARP would keep the seniors in line. In return AARP would get to sell more MEdicare Supllement insurance as more seniors would be pushed back from Medicare Part C into the regular Medicare indemnity system. When did our President become a the Prime Minister of the Democrat-Labor party? When did he lose control of the legislative process? Why does he feel he needs to comment on Kanye West’s conduct? If he can’t deal with Fox News, why should we feel confident he can deal with the Iranians?

By: R Allan Jensen

R Allan Jensen — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:43:09 +0000

Re::

Don Levit Says:
September 16th, 2009 at 1:32 pm

I wonder how many providers would be willing to accept Medicare-type reimbursements, if there are no private insurers to pick up the slack?

BINGO!!

Don wins today’s gold star. A lot of docs have been realizing this and their STATE associations have been butting heads with the AMA because of this.

The sight of the AMA selling the farm over Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements while they blithely ignore the impact of the disappearance of their cost-shifting fall guys (private insurance) is comic in the Greek tragedy sense.

By: Bart Ingles

Bart Ingles — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:17:04 +0000

…Yet some continue to insist that the public option is mandatory. But why? I can see where some liberal members of Congress would demand it purely as a matter of face– they’ve been promising it too long to back down. And I’ve given up looking for reasons behind what comes out of Pelosi’s mouth. But what’s Krugman’s real motive, if not as a lead-in to single-payer?

By: Chris Ewin, MD

Chris Ewin, MD — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:47:45 +0000

Don,
Remember that many physicians have small businesses.
The source of the reimbursement doesn’t matter if the revenues continue to decrease. If expenses rise, they choose to close their practices early or change professions.

By: Don Levit

Don Levit — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:32:50 +0000

I wonder how many providers would be willing to accept Medicare-type reimbursements, if there are no private insurers to pick up the slack?
The left seems to enjoy bashing the mean for-profit insurers, as if they are the only entity involved in the for-profit system.
Even not-for-profit organizations are allowed to pay reasonable compensation to employees, vendors, etc.
What is reasonable compensation?
Well, for employees, that would be enough to have a little discretionary income to have a bit of fun.
So, how are all the savings going to materialize if everyone wants (and needs) a little profit?
Don Levit