What's the matter? Can't health insurance companies compete with a public plan in the "free market"?

[marmar]

check out this press release from the Association of Health Insurance Plans:



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 9, 2009

Contact:
Robert Zirkelbach
[phone]


AHIP Statement on Health Care Reform Legislation


"The introduction of legislation is an important first step in the process and demonstrates a strong commitment by members of Congress to enact health care reform this year. We strongly believe that now is the time for comprehensive, bipartisan health care reform. We are currently reviewing the legislation and look forward to a broad discussion on the workability of the proposed reforms.

"Our community has offered a comprehensive health care reform proposal that includes a complete overhaul of market rules and consumer protections to ensure that every American has guaranteed access to affordable, portable health care coverage and that all Americans participate in the system. We have long advocated fixing the public safety net to make eligible for Medicaid all uninsured Americans living in poverty and to expand the children's health insurance program. Health plans also are fully committed to advancing cost containment and administrative simplification so that our health care system is put on a sustainable and fiscally responsible path.

"While we strongly support the goal of simplifying health care choices for individuals and employers, it is crucial to develop an architecture with workable rules that ensures broad participation of health plans that offer a variety of coverage options. Moreover, reform needs to preserve the ability of health plans to utilize existing tools to contain costs and avoid duplicative regulation that would drive up the cost of health care coverage for working families and small employers.

"We also share the concerns that employers, providers, and patients have raised about the significant unintended consequences of a new government-run plan. A government-run plan would dismantle employer-based coverage, significantly increase costs for those who remain in private coverage, and add additional liabilities to the federal budget. Alternatively, strong market rules and consumer protections will ensure that nobody falls through the cracks without disrupting the coverage of tens of millions of Americans who like and want to keep their current health plans. :puke:

"We need a uniquely American approach to health care reform that builds on what is working in the current health care system. Health plans are committed to this process and will work with the committee to make this goal a reality."

###

Providing Health Benefits for Over 200 Million Americans.


http://www.ahip.org/content/pressrelease.aspx?docid=27319

[Cleita]

1. Free market competition goes out the window with these hypocrites when

they are called upon to put their money where their mouths are.

[anigbrowl]

5. Not actually true (although I support government healthcare)

The argument is that it's hard/impossible to have true market competition when the government is involved, because the government's size dwarfs all other participants, effectively granting it a monopoly. Actually, I think this is a good thing in some sectors, because it means all the investment can go into providing the service rather than competing for market share; Britain's national health service doesn't spend money on advertising why it's better than going somewhere else for medical care, for example.

I have no love for the health insurance companies so I think they're better off looking at their options for getting out of that market altogether, or significantly restructuring their business. I don't think health insurance/care works well in a market context because consumers are not informed buyers and often can't defer their healthcare expenditures as you might with other kinds of economic decisions.

But if there's an affordable and universal government plan, then it makes a free market in health insurance pretty much impossible. In the narrow economic sense, the health insurance companies are correct about that. Sucks to be them :-)

[Cleita]

7. If they can't compete with "we the people" who are the government then they

need to get out of the business. There still is a place for insurance to sell "bells and whistles" coverage around a basic health plan paid for by the single payer and available to everyone. This is done around the world. It's pure greed that is motivating them at the expense of thousands of deaths every year of Americans who had curable diseases if they could have gotten professional and quality health care.

[anigbrowl]

11. Yes, this is pretty much what I'm saying.

[MNDemNY]

19. The only "competition" there would be if there is no public option...

would be the competition to un-insure the sick.

[Oregone]

2. The problem is they shouldn't be aloud to compete at all based on their past performance

Just ask the untreated, bankrupt, in-debt, and dead people

[Frustratedlady]

3. Let me understand...the insurance companies didn't cover these people...

to begin with, right? For the most part, they are those with existing conditions or who couldn't afford their high rates. What have they lost?

What I want to see are the wages of the upper staff members and CEOs, as well as their compensation packages. Everyone else is cutting back, they can too.

The medical field has exploded in their charges for medical care. They must be reined in.

[JimWis]

6. Your statement is right on. The insurance companies did not

cover these people. And then these people had to turn either to some sort of government help, like some of the states risk share programs, or medicaid, or go without. The insurance companies turned them away and in my opinion, now have no right to complain. So, I agree with you, what have they lost.

[Cleita]

8. What they want is for the government to buy their insurance for these people.

They are licking at the chops at all that new money there waiting for them to take and still deliver their same old crappy plan to people who can't afford deductibles and co-pays.

[seafan]

4. The insurance cartel is just SO concerned about a public option.

It keeps them up nights.

"We also share the concerns that employers, providers, and patients have raised about the significant unintended consequences of a new government-run plan. A government-run plan would dismantle employer-based coverage, significantly increase costs for those who remain in private coverage, and add additional liabilities to the federal budget. Alternatively, strong market rules and consumer protections will ensure that nobody falls through the cracks without disrupting the coverage of tens of millions of Americans who like and want to keep their current health plans.

"We need a uniquely American approach to health care reform that builds on what is working in the current health care system. Health plans are committed to this process and will work with the committee to make this goal a reality."

"You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." —George W. Bush, to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005

It's time to kick these greedy bastards to the curb.

[LaurenG]

9. Their double talk is not fooling anyone

The health care system is broken, and insurance companies won't fix it, the only thing they're committed to is the money in their own pockets.
Right now primary care doctors are having to consider how to stay in business. :mad:

[Cleita]

10. My doctor employer already has. He only takes cash and no insurance. We provide the

patients with a bill that they can submit to their insurance companies but we don't accept assignment because as you said the system is broken.

[LaurenG]

13. I've heard lots of murmuring - here's a snip about MDs in NY and their solution.

June 4, 2009 — Instead of waiting for Washington, DC, to solve the problem of the uninsured, general surgeon John Muney, MD, in New York City launched his own reform program last year.

He began offering unlimited primary and urgent care to patients at his 5 clinics for $79 per month, plus a $10 copay for acute-care visits.

<snip>

For his part, Dr. Bliss argues that retainer practices can be a key building block in a revamped healthcare system. Financing primary care and its steady stream of small charges through traditional health insurance, he said, not only wastes money in administrative costs, but forces physicians to earn a living in a grueling piecework manner, seeing patients every 12 minutes. However, insurance coverage is still needed for catastrophic, big-ticket medical problems. It'd be affordable for everyone, said Dr. Bliss, if primary care were removed from the insurance equation and financed instead through retainer practices. In the process, his field could thrive again, attracting more physicians.

"I love insurance," said Dr. Bliss. "I own plenty of it. But if we don't move away from our current system, we're going to bankrupt the country."

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/703900

[Cleita]

14. That will work for awhile until one of his patients needs chronic care and

exceeds the money spent for health care. Regional clinics cannot spread the risk like spreading it across a state or the whole country. Also, what if the patient needs tests, medication or hospitalization? Who pays for that?

[LaurenG]

17. Yeah - the link went on to describe the problem with inpt care

and testing. They didn't have a solution for the hospitals or test/surg centers. The patient again falls through the cracks.

[BanzaiBonnie]

12. WTF? build on what is working?

"We need a uniquely American approach to health care reform that builds on what is working in the current health care system. Health plans are committed to this process and will work with the committee to make this goal a reality."


This is laughable. I can't see anything that is working. It's broken. Fix it!


And I do remember in Washington State when the insurance companies were working for mandatory auto insurance... they promised our rates would go down if everyone had to share in the cost of insurance. I believed them then. We never had insurance rates lowered. They lied and I will not forget.


By law, the insurance companies cannot work to help give consumers a break. They must only look at their bottom line and what will make their investors the most profit.

[Missy Vixen]

15. Preach it, BanzaiBonnie

>And I do remember in Washington State when the insurance companies were working for mandatory auto insurance... they promised our rates would go down if everyone had to share in the cost of insurance. I believed them then. We never had insurance rates lowered. They lied and I will not forget.<

Absolutely.
We are both over 40. We have no children. We have (knock on wood) no tickets and no accidents on our record. I have been driving for twenty-three years and have never had a ticket, for instance. We have a 1994 Nissan Sentra and a 1996 Toyota Tacoma. We STILL pay almost $150 per month for auto insurance.

Our rates have NEVER decreased as a result of the "mandatory auto insurance". They will not decrease for "mandatory health insurance". Every American that wants a public plan, or single payer, had best be breaking their fingers off dialing the phone to Washington, DC, over and over and over.

The health insurance industry have repeatedly shown they can't be trusted. Why should we trust them now?

[WeDidIt]

16. The government runs the Post Office

UPS, FedEx, and DHL all seem quite capable of competing.

[Blue_Tires]

18. they only love 'free' markets when they are molded to profit them and no one else

[Wednesdays]

20. K&R

:kick:

[kenny blankenship]

21. We have a "Uniquely American" approach to health care now, and that's the PROBLEM.

Nobody else in the developed world would put up with this shit. Healthcare is a RIGHT.