“Nobody should capitalize on human illness and misfortune” “Health Insurance has

The biggest problem is that people don’t understand the meaning of insurance. Insurance is the buying and selling of risk. If you can’t risk getting sick and losing everything you have for medical expenses, then you buy insurance and pay the company to take on the risk. The ACA essentially outlawed insurance. You can’t charge more or decline a pre existing client, no caps. That means the insurance company is exposed to more risk but can’t charge individuals more for taking on a riskier customer. Also, many Americans don’t have enough to lose. If they get sick, they could just file bankruptcy and not lose that much. So, the only way ACA could work is to require all people to buy a policy.

Insurance companies do not care. They are buying and managing risk. They make money by holding money. They invest it and make more money so delaying payments means they earn more on their investments.
We have been sold a load of crap by politicians. Insurance is not health care. People want health care not risk management.

Getting rid of insurance would mean people have to save up and pay as they go for health care. Good luck collecting on that. Even with Medicare, Medicaid and ACA, doctors and hospitals are getting stiffed left and right. Get rid of those third party payers and every doctor that could would retire. If you are one of the smartest and most motivated people in the US, which doctors are, are you going to work for roasting hens or go into technology or equities and make a bundle of cash?

Look at how stupid the average american is. Would you be willing to be responsible for the health and wellness for a client pool that 1/2 of which is dumber than average.

We need socialized medicine. Have a tax that makes everyone help pay for the cost of health care. We already have a huge number of people on socialized care: the VA, Medicare, Medicaid. Those aren’t perfect but is making the few remaining health insurance companies be a mini privatized part of the government better.

Capitalism does not improve health care. Managing disease is a better system for profit than preventing disease - diabetes creates millions of healthcare jobs. If we could incentivize wellness through a socialized program, the goals of health care could change.

Just like cops need criminals to justify their existence and buy more high tech equipment, doctors need sick people especially in a market based economy.

My plan? Divide America into treatment groups and give each group a budget paid for by sales taxes (make everyone pay) to manage the health care of the group. The group can hire a bunch of specialist to manage all the diabetics or spend it on general practitioners that prevent diabetes. Make people realize that they are responsible for paying for the stupid lifestyle choices of their neighbors. How many communities would get rid of sex education in schools if they realized that they had to hire another ob/gyn to take care of more unwanted pregnancies. Sure you can have that motorcycle but it’s going to cost you more because at some point it will put you in the hospital. Treat your pain with something you can grow in your garden or pay a drug company a crazy sum for a more addictive product.

Change the funding, change the incentives, change the goals

My plan would never pass because there are too many people making money from the current system that would fight it.

Stepping down from the soapbox now.

More and more Americans are being pushed into HMO’s which is essentially socialized medicine. The amount of Medicaid patients is skyrocketing. In fact we have the working Medicaid patient. Someone with a job that does not provide insurance and thus qualifies them for Medicaid. No copay, all medications and hospitalizations paid for. Physicians make essentially nothing, hospitals lose money on every admission.

Funny how congress puts all of this into place YET vote themselves insurance which no other American can get for any reason.

And for you senior mongers; if you have Medicare, beginning in January 2020, it is ILLEGAL to sell or purchase a Medicare gap plan, thus taking away your right to choose. Obama signed this into law in 2015, and people are just now finding out about it.

All this and AOC our freshmen congresswoman who’s “taking the country by storm” in her first month suggests congress deserves a raise.

Ok..... my soapbox

As of 2020, Medicare Supplement plans (AKA Medigap) will no longer sell new Medigap Plan C or F. Congress has decided that new Medigap plans will no longer be allowed to cover the Part B deductible after January 1, 2020. This will only affect plans C and F and will only impact certain beneficiaries.

It affects all NEW Medicare beneficiaries

Healthcare has gotten bigger and bigger, and more and more central to people's lives. It is already in large measure run by the government anyway, just need now to make it serve the people instead of insurance companies.

So I fully agree with the OP.

SJG

Eli's Coming (1975) - Three Dog Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CuNBeng…

The big problem is, we don't have a health care system. We have a health care industry. The profit motive is killing it.

^^^^ Very good point!

SJG

Once we apply a corporate model to anything of necessity, which should be a basic human right, like health care, housing, education, it gets fucked up beyond belief.

IceyLoco +25

SJG