Healthcare reform is really a discussion about disintermediation in disguise- no more, no less

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disintermediation

In economics, disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain: "cutting out the middleman". Instead of going through traditional distribution channels, which had some type of intermediate (such as a distributor, wholesaler, broker, or agent), companies may now deal with every customer directly, for example via the Internet. One important factor is a drop in the cost of servicing customers directly.

If the travel agents had as successful a lobby as the health insurance industry, you would not be able to buy tickets online.

If stock brokers had been more successful lobbyists, you would not be able to trade inexpensively on your own behalf as you may now

If the traditional booksellers had a more influential lobby, you would not now have the likes of Amazon.

The Representatives in Congress have aligned themselves with the equivalent of the buggy makers in a new automotive age in an effort to impede progress. The health insurance companies are middlemen, pure and simple, who add no value to the equation for the consumer. I concede that originally, they may have indeed added value, if they operated as bargaining collectives and worked to drive down prices on behalf of the consumer. I believe that day is long gone. If the for profit health care insurance industry can pay an executive 1 Billion dollars in severance pay in 2006, I think we can be fairly assured that the savings are not being passed along to the consumer in lowered costs, but are being dispersed to favored insiders as compensation. As far as a consumer is concerned, their gigantic overhead (as compared to Medicare) and bloated compensation structures make them the enemy of an affordable healthcare system.

Why shed any more tears over them than for travel agents or stockbrokers who saw their industries modernized and their middleman role eliminated? The economy survived and those folks moved on.

[annabanana]

1. Yet ANOTHER excellent approach for single payer advocacy!. . thanks. . eom

[Oregone]

3. Here is a better approach:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009064_666715.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

50% of all bankruptcies involve a health problem of a person WITH private insurance.

The Public Option/Private Market advocates are basically backing the continuation of private plans that will perpetually fail to honor their policies and leave the holders in the cold. The reality is that private providers are not cutting it, and there is no reason to believe they will alter this approach.

[annabanana]

5. We need to attack on ALL fronts. The economics just don't work

wtihout a true, viable, public healthCARE system.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. That was the whole theme of "Sicko" and one that is consistently lost in most discussions

That point has been made and must continue to be made. It doesn't MATTER if you have insurance, if you have a catastrophic illness, you will still lose. I always say: "Even Superman couldn't afford American healthcare" - an obvious reference to Christopher Reeve.

The reason I think a discussion of disintermediation is interesting is because it should stand all the "free -marketeers" on their head - why are we going out of our way to protect an outmoded, inefficient system if it can't compete on it's own merits with a public plan or single payer? Let them meet the challenge of a public option or let them wither as they deserve if they cannot.

[Oregone]

7. "Let them meet the challenge...or let them wither"

No, that isn't the point. The point is that the numbers PROVE they do not deserve the chance to compete. It is irresponsible for government to allow them to continue to operate, since they are leading insured people into debt, bankruptcy and even death. It is criminal, and the government should not allow criminals and their criminal business model to continue to compete, period.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. Hey, I am HAPPY to disintermediate the health insurance industry ASAP

and that was the entire point of my OP, so I would say we are in agreement. It's just bringing Congress to that same viewpoint , kicking and screaming, that is the issue. My OP addresses a point of logic that I think they would have difficulty answering in any forum, debate, etc. as a means to bringing this debate to a fruitful close on behalf of the citizen/consumer.

[msongs]

2. nice framing - gonna suggest it in my next round of emails to congress critters nt

[The Magistrate]

4. An Excellent Point, Ma'am

[slipslidingaway]

9. Happy to be the fifth nt

[slipslidingaway]

10. The product of Health Insurance Companies is to move money and skim profits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoPjExTu-dM

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

11. That is my point about no value added as far as a consumer is concerned

If all the insurance companies disappeared tommorrow and somebody else issued the checks for services rendered, life would continue without a blip for the REAL healthcare providers (doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc.) and for the consumer as well.

[slipslidingaway]

14. Yes and it is an excellent point, both saying the same thing :) n/t

[area51]

12. Kick.

Why do we have single-payer fire and police departments, and single-payer roads, and single-payer libraries, but not single-payer healthcare?

Don't believe the paid shills for the rightwing, for-profit insurance agencies. Get info on single-payer healthcare here. It's the only true pro-life position.

[1]

13. disintermediation. isn't that the walmart model?

[slipslidingaway]

15. kick nt

[nichomachus]

16. What you neglect to address here

And the intermediaries among the intermediaries. It's not just the insurance companies. There are other people who act as intermediaries among the insurance companies.

So, there is a whole layer of bureaucracy that does absolutely nothing to provide you health care OR insurance. They don't make anything. They don't distribute anything. They don't see patients. They do nothing but pass papers -- or electrons -- around among the other layers of bureaucracy. You never deal with them directly.

These people make billions of dollars. One of these companies just sold for $4.6 billion dollars. Under single payer, they will have nothing to do. They are not going to go quietly.

Since 1990, insurance companies have donated $315,000,000 to politicians. In the same period, the health-care industrial complex has donated $461,000,000. They did not do this out of a sense of patriotic duty.