WHY don't we have or start NON-PROFIT Health Insurance Companies?

[Double T]

If we had NON-PROFIT Health Insurance Companies; much like NON-PROFIT Credit Unions in the financial world; WE could realize at least a 30% cost savings right off the top. Add in price caps or price controls on hospitals, doctors and big pharma and even further cost savings could be realized. Wall street destroyed our nations economy with the housing scam and wall street will bury US six feet under with their health care insurance scam with ever escalating prices. Our elected representatives don't have the balls, guts or brains to get the job done SO our only solution is fire THEM in the voting booth this November. What do YOU think?

[SmileyRose]

1. That done came and went.

I'm pretty sure all medical insurance companies and hospitals were non-profit.

Nearly all the hospitals were owned by churches........

[sandnsea]

4. Most still are

I don't think I've ever been to a for-profit hospital in my life. Between Catholics, Baptist, Jewish, and plain old community and public, I couldn't even name a for-profit hospital. I know they're out there. I guess I just don't choose those communities to live in for some reason.

[SmileyRose]

7. All the ones around here have gone big hospital corp

I think nearly all the old county and city hospitals are Tenet Health group. A bunch are now Wellstar. Only Piedmont in Atlanta is non-profit now I think - except the Scottish Rite (Children's hospital)

[sandnsea]

15. A few in Oregon have

It seems to me the more right wing the town, the more likely it is to allow a corporation to take over their non-profit hospital.

I don't even talk about the free care from our Catholic delivery system because I don't think most people would believe me.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

23. About 80% of hospitals are government-run or non-profit

Private hospitals tend to be small specialty organizations.

[Warpy]

6. They were nonprofits at one time and that's when they

actually worked for most people. Exit the managing doctors and enter the newly minted MBAs during the Reagan years and we know what's happened to health care at all levels since then.

I don't think we can ever turn the clock back. The best we can hope for at this point is a Medicare buy in for people who are uninsurable because of pre existing illnesses. As more and more people get sick and have to switch, perhaps the for profit dinosaurs will simply start to die off.

However that Medicare buy in is essential.

[SmileyRose]

10. I could not agree more.

In the last 5 years I've had more to do with the medical profession than I would ever want. THANK GOD our insurance company works with Piedmont in Atlanta. Non-profit and hands down the best hospital in the metro area (and we've been to all of them).

[wtmusic]

2. I have a rep coming by for a quote on insurance from a co-op

1 million members, pre-existing conditions allowed, once you're in any price hikes are spread throughout the group.

That's all I know...sounds a little too good to be true. But I'm done with Anthem. :thumbsdown:

[sandnsea]

3. We do

Kaiser is non-profit. Minnesota has only non-profits.

Many years ago all the Blues were non-profit, about half of them still are.

The rest got permission to go for profit back in the 80s. They said they couldn't compete, I forget the reasoning now. But it's why I think it's funny that Republicans want to create non-profit insurance in place of a public option, because we already did that and they said it didn't work, we had to have the "free market".

Don't forget, we have non-profit medical facilities too.

Health care is expensive and always will be.

[glinda]

11. BCBS in MN sucks. I know. I am on it. MN has no bragging rights at all.

[sandnsea]

13. It's a full non-profit state

That was the question. I never have thought there was a silver bullet solution to health care.

[glinda]

22. My MN BCBS non-profit raised my rates another $50 today! $250 increase in 1 yr.

[Double T]

12. WHY is health care expensive? It didn't used to be.

17% of the GDP goes to overpriced, substandard health care. There is only one simple reason the cost of our health care is so high; pure greed. It does not and should not be that way.

[sandnsea]

18. That's about half of it I think

But we have so much better care than we used to. Better tests, more tests, more treatments. Lots of people would have just died 30 years ago. My mother's heart transplant cost at least a million dollars over the extra ten years she got from it.

I think people are just being incredibly naive to say cost is only about greed. There's definitely excessive profit at many many stages. But I don't know how you remove all of it in a capitalist society. It's not just phrma and the ama. It's everything from medical sales to the cost of MRIs and lab equipment. It's all expensive.

[Double T]

21. Free Market Capitalism is destroying US; it is the essence of greed.

What we are ALL experiencing, whether WE want to admit it or not, is the final destruction of the US economy, financial system and by extension our society. The means can't even come close to the extremes in health care costs, military costs and the cost of the lost American jobs. There is no justification for our health care costing twice that of the rest of the world.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

24. A couple of things....

Many healthcare providers, including non-profits, pay their medical staff on the basis of productivity. The more patients you see, the more you get paid. It's faster and more profitable for a healthcare provider to see a patient for just a few minute and order a half dozen tests than it is for the physician to spend a little more time to get a complete medical history and really get to know the patient. Fewer tests (which are profitable) and fewer patients in and out of the examination room.

There have been studies (one of them online, but damn me if I remember where it was) that showed some pretty strong evidence that healthcare costs are lower at hospitals where the physicians are salaried and not paid based on productivity. One of those hospitals is the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic -- the world renowned for its quality of care Mayo Clinic just HAPPENS to be one of the low-cost healthcare providers in this country.

Hmmmm. Maybe we should be looking at the financial models at the Mayo Clinic and others like it.

OK. I can't find the really interesting article I mentioned above. But this one is pretty good.

Enjoy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/health/policy/25doctors.html

[unapatriciated]

14. even non-profits skirt the law.

http://kaiserpapers.org/minnesota.html

Special Thanks to The State of Minnesota Attorney General's Office - Lori Swanson, Attorney General and Virginia Clark.

George Halvorson, current CEO of Kaiser Health Plan and Hospitals, a non profit HMO and the Permanente Medical Group was found to be funding a lavish lifestyle off of patient money while employed at Kaiser partner organization, HealthPartners of Minnesota. HealthPartners is also designated by the I.R.S. as a non profit, public benefit corporation!

Halvorson went and took a job with KaiserGeorge Halvorson rather than stick around and take the heat from getting caught with his shady dealings in Minnesota. You decide if he brought his special business practices
from Minnesota to California.

[sandnsea]

16. There's fraud in Medicare too

You're never going to get around that. I don't think it even helps to focus on that stuff. You have to focus on the 97% who are doing right, and then figure out what models deliver cost-effective and efficient care.

[dysfunctional press]

5. congress should mandate that ALL health insurance be non-profit.

THAT would lead to single-payer.

[Cleita]

8. I think it would be very difficult, however, it should be explored.

First you would have to comply with state insurance laws. Next you need to know what running an insurance company entails money wise and operation wise. I think you could explore the possibility of how many premiums you could collect to begin with from willing consumers. Maybe you could start an enrollment and put the money into escrow in case you can't pull if off so you can return it to the owners. I would assume that any success would be met with an onslaught of attacks from the mainstream insurance companies to sour potential clients from buying insurance from you, kind of like they attack other countries health care with lies and planted articles in mainstream magazines pretending to be authoritative, but traceable back to a publicist for an insurance company.

I do think though that we should start forming groups to study the issue and maybe something can be hammered out as a viable plan to launch something like a cooperative owned by the insurers like credit unions are. Of course anything like this would have to be started out regionally, not nationally.

[Lucy Goosey]

9. I think it's a great idea...

...but Repubs would probably say that Reagan and Jesus Ayn Rand would disapprove or some such nonsense.

[Dr.Phool]

17. Non profit doesn't mean no profit.

It's the way it's set up for taxing purposes with the IRS.

About the only difference from a for profit corporation is that there are no shareholders. And usually the board keeps all the excess money.

[sandnsea]

20. They can't just keep all the money

It has to be put back into the non-profit. No, it doesn't mean there isn't sometimes more revenue than expenses, but there isn't any profit motive either. They're generally a break-even proposition.

They do have all of the same salary and medical supply costs as for profit hospitals though. That might be something to think about.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

25. You're correct....

The cost of lime Jell-o is the same at the cafeteria of a for-profit hospital as it is for a non-profit.

When a non-profit hospital runs a budget surplus, those funds are reinvested in equipment, used to retire old debts, or targeted for other programs in the institution.

[juajen]

19. Well, where's the profit in that? Capitalism, you know. NT