Should Insurance companies pay

[Nautiknight]

I have seen this brought up by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and Joy Bahar as well as here and other forums I go to. Should Insurance Companies pay for hospital care for treating the unvaxxed for covid? Before you answer , especially no, consideration towards other illness needs to be given.

Most of our health issues are lifestyle choices . Genetics plays a role but a lot of our diseases are a direct result of lifestyle and choices. Choices that in most ways are no different than not getting a Covid vaccine.

My dad smoked most of his adult life. He ate the wrong foods and didn't exercise. By 1980 he was like patient 21 at Florida Hospital for this new medical procedure called. heart by pass surgery. After surgery he did improve his life, stopped smoking and began running 5k road races.Yet he still craved sugar and I recall the guy could hammer 2 liters of Pepsi a day sometimes more. By the time he was 61 he was diabetic and had a stroke. He would later develop cancer of the larynx and have to use a talkie thing the remaining years of his life. He passed at 83 years old back in 2015.

My mom smoked her entire life and would develop emphysema and COPD which both ultimately caused her death.

Smoking , excessive sugar , alcohol , too much red meat,fried foods ,not using sunscreen, taking narcotics, too many sex partners and on and on all are choices people make daily that lead to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancers ,liver failures,kidney disease ,stokes and more. The choice to not exercise is also another that leads to problems.

so,I ask the question should insurance companies be allowed to deny coverage to the unvaxxed ,because after all they made a choice here. If you say yes then they should also not cover heart disease, stroke,diabetes,liver diseases, many cancers and such. A significant amount of these diseases take years to progress and manifest . It's decades of bad choices which leads to these problems. Why did Aetna from Martin Marietta pay for all my dad's problems or my mother's for that matter? Because that's what they do.

I think you go down a legal and ethical slope of denying coverage for the unvaxxed here. I also think if you are for that move , then perhaps we need food police measuring all of our BMI and hanging out at Chick FIL A making sure you're healthy enough to get a spicy chicken sandwich. We need to smoke shame,fat shame , sugar shame, liquor shame , meat shame and even sex shame especially women who have cervical cancer and had multiple partners while also making the choice to not getting the vaccine for the virus that leads to the cancer.

I don't see how anyone can argue denying coverage or care to the unvaxxed and at the same time have no problems for insurance companies pay for our lifestyle Illneses. Heart Disease and Diabetes will kill more people than Covid and in fact if you have either or both of those and get COViD you are not likely long for this earth. Did Covid kill you or your diabetes and heart disease?

The unvaxxed make one choice ,most of our health care problems are the same bad choices repeated over again for decades. How is that any better ? How are those vaxxed heart patients any more deserving of having their quadruple bypass surgery covered versus an unvaxxed Covid patient being treated for pneumonia?

Even if we had universal government care I don't think it's any better. it seems the only people who truely deserve to get healthcare would be the triathlete with 3 percent body fat.
you know healthy people . Everyone else Sucks to be you..denied.

 

[KnighttimeJoe]

I just want to know: how do you determine the number of spaces you use with your punctuation? Sometimes it's one, other times it's like five. Sometimes you don't even use any.

 

[Cubs79]

I have seen this brought up by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and Joy Bahar as well as here and other forums I go to. Should Insurance Companies pay for hospital care for treating the unvaxxed for covid? Before you answer , especially no, consideration towards other illness needs to be given.

Most of our health issues are lifestyle choices . Genetics plays a role but a lot of our diseases are a direct result of lifestyle and choices. Choices that in most ways are no different than not getting a Covid vaccine.

My dad smoked most of his adult life. He ate the wrong foods and didn't exercise. By 1980 he was like patient 21 at Florida Hospital for this new medical procedure called. heart by pass surgery. After surgery he did improve his life, stopped smoking and began running 5k road races.Yet he still craved sugar and I recall the guy could hammer 2 liters of Pepsi a day sometimes more. By the time he was 61 he was diabetic and had a stroke. He would later develop cancer of the larynx and have to use a talkie thing the remaining years of his life. He passed at 83 years old back in 2015.

My mom smoked her entire life and would develop emphysema and COPD which both ultimately caused her death.

Smoking , excessive sugar , alcohol , too much red meat,fried foods ,not using sunscreen, taking narcotics, too many sex partners and on and on all are choices people make daily that lead to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancers ,liver failures,kidney disease ,stokes and more. The choice to not exercise is also another that leads to problems.

so,I ask the question should insurance companies be allowed to deny coverage to the unvaxxed ,because after all they made a choice here. If you say yes then they should also not cover heart disease, stroke,diabetes,liver diseases, many cancers and such. A significant amount of these diseases take years to progress and manifest . It's decades of bad choices which leads to these problems. Why did Aetna from Martin Marietta pay for all my dad's problems or my mother's for that matter? Because that's what they do.

I think you go down a legal and ethical slope of denying coverage for the unvaxxed here. I also think if you are for that move , then perhaps we need food police measuring all of our BMI and hanging out at Chick FIL A making sure you're healthy enough to get a spicy chicken sandwich. We need to smoke shame,fat shame , sugar shame, liquor shame , meat shame and even sex shame especially women who have cervical cancer and had multiple partners while also making the choice to not getting the vaccine for the virus that leads to the cancer.

I don't see how anyone can argue denying coverage or care to the unvaxxed and at the same time have no problems for insurance companies pay for our lifestyle Illneses. Heart Disease and Diabetes will kill more people than Covid and in fact if you have either or both of those and get COViD you are not likely long for this earth. Did Covid kill you or your diabetes and heart disease?

The unvaxxed make one choice ,most of our health care problems are the same bad choices repeated over again for decades. How is that any better ? How are those vaxxed heart patients any more deserving of having their quadruple bypass surgery covered versus an unvaxxed Covid patient being treated for pneumonia?

Even if we had universal government care I don't think it's any better. it seems the only people who truely deserve to get healthcare would be the triathlete with 3 percent body fat.
you know healthy people . Everyone else Sucks to be you..denied.

But the one choice affects other people. Most of the other things you are talking about don't impact other people. As far as insurance goes, I don't think they should deny coverage for being anti vax. But if you are talking about actual treatment, I think there is an argument to be had here, especially in hospitals that are out of room.

 

[DaShuckster]

I have seen this brought up by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and Joy Bahar as well as here and other forums I go to. Should Insurance Companies pay for hospital care for treating the unvaxxed for covid?

Apparently Nauti is getting nervous his health insurance is going to balk at footing a big part of his six-figure hospital stay when they discover he wasn't vaccinated for COVID.

 

[Boosted87]

I have seen this brought up by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and Joy Bahar as well as here and other forums I go to. Should Insurance Companies pay for hospital care for treating the unvaxxed for covid? Before you answer , especially no, consideration towards other illness needs to be given.

Most of our health issues are lifestyle choices . Genetics plays a role but a lot of our diseases are a direct result of lifestyle and choices. Choices that in most ways are no different than not getting a Covid vaccine.

My dad smoked most of his adult life. He ate the wrong foods and didn't exercise. By 1980 he was like patient 21 at Florida Hospital for this new medical procedure called. heart by pass surgery. After surgery he did improve his life, stopped smoking and began running 5k road races.Yet he still craved sugar and I recall the guy could hammer 2 liters of Pepsi a day sometimes more. By the time he was 61 he was diabetic and had a stroke. He would later develop cancer of the larynx and have to use a talkie thing the remaining years of his life. He passed at 83 years old back in 2015.

My mom smoked her entire life and would develop emphysema and COPD which both ultimately caused her death.

Smoking , excessive sugar , alcohol , too much red meat,fried foods ,not using sunscreen, taking narcotics, too many sex partners and on and on all are choices people make daily that lead to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancers ,liver failures,kidney disease ,stokes and more. The choice to not exercise is also another that leads to problems.

so,I ask the question should insurance companies be allowed to deny coverage to the unvaxxed ,because after all they made a choice here. If you say yes then they should also not cover heart disease, stroke,diabetes,liver diseases, many cancers and such. A significant amount of these diseases take years to progress and manifest . It's decades of bad choices which leads to these problems. Why did Aetna from Martin Marietta pay for all my dad's problems or my mother's for that matter? Because that's what they do.

I think you go down a legal and ethical slope of denying coverage for the unvaxxed here. I also think if you are for that move , then perhaps we need food police measuring all of our BMI and hanging out at Chick FIL A making sure you're healthy enough to get a spicy chicken sandwich. We need to smoke shame,fat shame , sugar shame, liquor shame , meat shame and even sex shame especially women who have cervical cancer and had multiple partners while also making the choice to not getting the vaccine for the virus that leads to the cancer.

I don't see how anyone can argue denying coverage or care to the unvaxxed and at the same time have no problems for insurance companies pay for our lifestyle Illneses. Heart Disease and Diabetes will kill more people than Covid and in fact if you have either or both of those and get COViD you are not likely long for this earth. Did Covid kill you or your diabetes and heart disease?

The unvaxxed make one choice ,most of our health care problems are the same bad choices repeated over again for decades. How is that any better ? How are those vaxxed heart patients any more deserving of having their quadruple bypass surgery covered versus an unvaxxed Covid patient being treated for pneumonia?

Even if we had universal government care I don't think it's any better. it seems the only people who truely deserve to get healthcare would be the triathlete with 3 percent body fat.
you know healthy people . Everyone else Sucks to be you..denied.

It's a good question. Should insurers deny coverage based on vax status arbitrarily in the middle of a coverage period ? Absolutely not. But do insurers have the right to tier coverage or increase premiums going forward based on vaccination? Absolutely. So reframe your question in a free market, pro-business kind of way. Should insurers be forced to subsidize the rates of their high-risk customers by spreading that risk (and cost) to their other customers?

I don't think you meant to, but your post here pretty much explains why I generally support the idea of a single payer system where society as a whole is encouraged to make better choices by being aligned to drive down costs. For example, if you have a national single payer healthcare system and you have data that suggests $300b is spent on care directly related to smoking, then you can pretty easily justify billions of dollars to be spent on anti-smoking campaigns. If you can spend $20b per year convincing people to quit smoking (and providing support) and the return is $100b in reduced system costs, pretty good investment for society right?

Same logic would apply to COVID. You treat everyone the same, but if you come up with math that justifies paying people $500 to get the shot because that's actually going to save the system money, then you do that. You don't have to deny care, but you can certainly incentivize where the data backs it up.

The for-profit part of our insurance system does the opposite. Profits are basically limited to a small vig. The only way for the broader insurance industry to grow profits is by growing the amount of $$$ spent in the system each year (overall costs going up). There's very little incentive on the insurance side for us to make healthier choices. Competition and regulation is going to limit their profit margins no matter what, so maximizing overall healthcare spending is the rational objective.

 

[goodknightfl]

Simple answer is yes.

 

[Crazyhole]

I have seen this brought up by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and Joy Bahar as well as here and other forums I go to. Should Insurance Companies pay for hospital care for treating the unvaxxed for covid? Before you answer , especially no, consideration towards other illness needs to be given.

Most of our health issues are lifestyle choices . Genetics plays a role but a lot of our diseases are a direct result of lifestyle and choices. Choices that in most ways are no different than not getting a Covid vaccine.

My dad smoked most of his adult life. He ate the wrong foods and didn't exercise. By 1980 he was like patient 21 at Florida Hospital for this new medical procedure called. heart by pass surgery. After surgery he did improve his life, stopped smoking and began running 5k road races.Yet he still craved sugar and I recall the guy could hammer 2 liters of Pepsi a day sometimes more. By the time he was 61 he was diabetic and had a stroke. He would later develop cancer of the larynx and have to use a talkie thing the remaining years of his life. He passed at 83 years old back in 2015.

My mom smoked her entire life and would develop emphysema and COPD which both ultimately caused her death.

Smoking , excessive sugar , alcohol , too much red meat,fried foods ,not using sunscreen, taking narcotics, too many sex partners and on and on all are choices people make daily that lead to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancers ,liver failures,kidney disease ,stokes and more. The choice to not exercise is also another that leads to problems.

so,I ask the question should insurance companies be allowed to deny coverage to the unvaxxed ,because after all they made a choice here. If you say yes then they should also not cover heart disease, stroke,diabetes,liver diseases, many cancers and such. A significant amount of these diseases take years to progress and manifest . It's decades of bad choices which leads to these problems. Why did Aetna from Martin Marietta pay for all my dad's problems or my mother's for that matter? Because that's what they do.

I think you go down a legal and ethical slope of denying coverage for the unvaxxed here. I also think if you are for that move , then perhaps we need food police measuring all of our BMI and hanging out at Chick FIL A making sure you're healthy enough to get a spicy chicken sandwich. We need to smoke shame,fat shame , sugar shame, liquor shame , meat shame and even sex shame especially women who have cervical cancer and had multiple partners while also making the choice to not getting the vaccine for the virus that leads to the cancer.

I don't see how anyone can argue denying coverage or care to the unvaxxed and at the same time have no problems for insurance companies pay for our lifestyle Illneses. Heart Disease and Diabetes will kill more people than Covid and in fact if you have either or both of those and get COViD you are not likely long for this earth. Did Covid kill you or your diabetes and heart disease?

The unvaxxed make one choice ,most of our health care problems are the same bad choices repeated over again for decades. How is that any better ? How are those vaxxed heart patients any more deserving of having their quadruple bypass surgery covered versus an unvaxxed Covid patient being treated for pneumonia?

Even if we had universal government care I don't think it's any better. it seems the only people who truely deserve to get healthcare would be the triathlete with 3 percent body fat.
you know healthy people . Everyone else Sucks to be you..denied.

This sentiment will lead to no good outcome. The fact that it's even a topic is pretty troubling.

 

[Nautiknight]

I just want to know: how do you determine the number of spaces you use with your punctuation? Sometimes it's one, other times it's like five. Sometimes you don't even use any.

I am sorry fat sausage fingers ,tiny phone key board. My bad . I don't use my laptop to surf Rivals . I get you brother . lol .

 

[Nautiknight]

It's a good question. Should insurers deny coverage based on vax status arbitrarily in the middle of a coverage period ? Absolutely not. But do insurers have the right to tier coverage or increase premiums going forward based on vaccination? Absolutely. So reframe your question in a free market, pro-business kind of way. Should insurers be forced to subsidize the rates of their high-risk customers by spreading that risk (and cost) to their other customers?

I don't think you meant to, but your post here pretty much explains why I generally support the idea of a single payer system where society as a whole is encouraged to make better choices by being aligned to drive down costs. For example, if you have a national single payer healthcare system and you have data that suggests $300b is spent on care directly related to smoking, then you can pretty easily justify billions of dollars to be spent on anti-smoking campaigns. If you can spend $20b per year convincing people to quit smoking (and providing support) and the return is $100b in reduced system costs, pretty good investment for society right?

Same logic would apply to COVID. You treat everyone the same, but if you come up with math that justifies paying people $500 to get the shot because that's actually going to save the system money, then you do that. You don't have to deny care, but you can certainly incentivize where the data backs it up.

The for-profit part of our insurance system does the opposite. Profits are basically limited to a small vig. The only way for the broader insurance industry to grow profits is by growing the amount of $$$ spent in the system each year (overall costs going up). There's very little incentive on the insurance side for us to make healthier choices. Competition and regulation is going to limit their profit margins no matter what, so maximizing overall healthcare spending is the rational objective.

I have another idea in this regard. There is not much competition in the health insurance industry which is tightly regulated by the states. it's time we inject free market competition into that industry and allow Flo , The Gecko, Farmers, Nationwide, State Farm, USAA and Farm Bureau to name a few to sell us home , auto, life and health insurance. All of those companies are regulated out of the health insurance industry. Inject competition into the health care insurance industry and prices should fall.At sane time allow those companies to sell nationwide across boundaries.

I Also think health insurance companies should up charge for those things and also give discounts for leading a healthier life . Like my Garmin watch can track all sorts of my physical activities . I have every hike ,every bike ride ,every walk tracked since I got the watch last winter. I would submit my data for a discount for sure.

 

[DaShuckster]

do insurers have the right to tier coverage or increase premiums going forward based on vaccination? Absolutely.

Who do you think ultimately ends up paying the biggest share of a COVID patient's hospital bill? Is it coming from those sweeties at the insurance company or from the premiums it rakes in from everybody else they insure?

Whether its smokers or the COVID-19 unvaxxed, the rest of us shouldn't have to pay higher insurance premiums because some jokers deliberately choose to engage in risky behavior. This is another example of the self-righteous, "it's my choice" crowd suddenly changing their tune when it comes to footing their hospital bill. Then, suddenly, "we all have to pitch in together," right? What hypocrisy!

 

[Crazyhole]

I miss the days when "death panels" were just a crazy conspiracy theory. Now the left embraces the concept.

 

[UCF11and1]

I have another idea in this regard. There is not much competition in the health insurance industry which is tightly regulated by the states. it's time we inject free market competition into that industry and allow Flo , The Gecko, Farmers, Nationwide, State Farm, USAA and Farm Bureau to name a few to sell us home , auto, life and health insurance. All of those companies are regulated out of the health insurance industry. Inject competition into the health care insurance industry and prices should fall.At sane time allow those companies to sell nationwide across boundaries.

I Also think health insurance companies should up charge for those things and also give discounts for leading a healthier life . Like my Garmin watch can track all sorts of my physical activities . I have every hike ,every bike ride ,every walk tracked since I got the watch last winter. I would submit my data for a discount for sure.

I don’t know the others but I get a discount for being healthy, another for being active (smartwatch tracker), getting the flu shot, and another for not smoking. I think it is a total of 10% discount on the premium. We would also accrue points that could be exchanged for gift cards (~$300 to $400/year).

Insurance companies should definitely offer a discount if you are fully vaccinated against Covid = lower risk of hospitalization and shorter stays if have to go to the hospital.

 

[Crazyhole]

I don’t know the others but I get a discount for being healthy, another for being active (smartwatch tracker), getting the flu shot, and another for not smoking. I think it is a total of 10% discount on the premium. We would also accrue points that could be exchanged for gift cards (~$300 to $400/year).

Insurance companies should definitely offer a discount if you are fully vaccinated against Covid = lower risk of hospitalization and shorter stays if have to go to the hospital.

Not directing this comment at you specifically, but FACEPALM!!!!!! I hope every leftist reads your post and agrees 100%. Then we can talk about why my insurance was 1/3rd the cost with a lower deductible prior to Obamacare.

 

[UCF11and1]

Not directing this comment at you specifically, but FACEPALM!!!!!! I hope every leftist reads your post and agrees 100%. Then we can talk about why my insurance was 1/3rd the cost with a lower deductible prior to Obamacare.

My insurance didn’t change. $60/paycheck with $200 deductible and $1500 max out of pocket. I could change to $85/month with no deductible

 

[Crazyhole]

My insurance didn’t change. $60/paycheck with $200 deductible and $1500 max out of pocket. I could change to $85/month with no deductible

Are you single?

 

[UCF11and1]

Are you single?

She has insurance through UCF, $50/paycheck

 

[Boosted87]

I have another idea in this regard. There is not much competition in the health insurance industry which is tightly regulated by the states. it's time we inject free market competition into that industry and allow Flo , The Gecko, Farmers, Nationwide, State Farm, USAA and Farm Bureau to name a few to sell us home , auto, life and health insurance. All of those companies are regulated out of the health insurance industry. Inject competition into the health care insurance industry and prices should fall.At sane time allow those companies to sell nationwide across boundaries.

I Also think health insurance companies should up charge for those things and also give discounts for leading a healthier life . Like my Garmin watch can track all sorts of my physical activities . I have every hike ,every bike ride ,every walk tracked since I got the watch last winter. I would submit my data for a discount for sure.

Competition is good, but it's not going to fix any of the issues you are raising here.

IMO, the fundamental problem is that for-profit health insurance just doesn't make sense for one simple reason - they have zero incentive to drive down overall healthcare spending. So fundamentally, the industry is mis-aligned with a national objective - which is to control health care inflation.

If premiums cost $1,000 a month and the margins are 3%, what is competition going to do? The insurers can't decrease provider expenses. Sure, they can negotiate - but the problems are structural. Without systemic change to the entire cost structure there's no juice to squeeze out of the lemon.

 

[Boosted87]

I miss the days when "death panels" were just a crazy conspiracy theory. Now the left embraces the concept.

It was never a conspiracy theory, it was just a marketing tool for the right to avoid discussing the reality of end of life care and the associated costs.

I mean, if you ask someone if we should spend $300,000 to keep someone on deaths door alive for an extra 30 days, I don't think you're going to get too many that think that's a good idea. We've gotten very good at keeping people temporarily alive with medical gadgets and wizardry. If you want to have an honest conversation about health care spending then you need deal with the topic.

 

[Crazyhole]

It was never a conspiracy theory, it was just a marketing tool for the right to avoid discussing the reality of end of life care and the associated costs.

I mean, if you ask someone if we should spend $300,000 to keep someone on deaths door alive for an extra 30 days, I don't think you're going to get too many that think that's a good idea. We've gotten very good at keeping people temporarily alive with medical gadgets and wizardry. If you want to have an honest conversation about health care spending then you need deal with the topic.

I'm more than happy to have that discussion, but the uncomfortable truth that most people don't want to address is that the rising costs are predicated on the supplier first, and the intermediary second. Unless you're willing to say that doctors, nurses, and hospital staffs in general make too much money the conversation won't go anywhere.

 

[sk8knight]

Competition is good, but it's not going to fix any of the issues you are raising here.

IMO, the fundamental problem is that for-profit health insurance just doesn't make sense for one simple reason - they have zero incentive to drive down overall healthcare spending. So fundamentally, the industry is mis-aligned with a national objective - which is to control health care inflation.

If premiums cost $1,000 a month and the margins are 3%, what is competition going to do? The insurers can't decrease provider expenses. Sure, they can negotiate - but the problems are structural. Without systemic change to the entire cost structure there's no juice to squeeze out of the lemon.

And government-provided healthcare or government-defined healthcare has zero motivation to drive down costs. Inflation is cost-based and a competitive system increases supply to answer demand. At some point, they begin competing for customers and that naturally drives down costs.

Government-funded services are not able to effectively scale or compete for costs. Most government-driven or -funded services are monopolies for the explicit purpose to eliminate competition and cost variation. Monopolies make sense for a nuclear power company where the costs of entry are so high, but it doesn’t make sense for healthcare providers where we should have a dynamic supply.

Profit-driven services have high interest in scaling up supply to meet demand. The supply of Government and non-profit services is at the whim of the amount of funding available or the legislated rate scheme. If we federalize healthcare, it will take an Act of Congress every time we need to scale the system or else we will have very real scarcity. Is that what you really want?


The biggest difference is that you have some recourse against your private health insurer if they do you dirty. You will have zero real recourse against a government system.

 

[Boosted87]

And government-provided healthcare or government-defined healthcare has zero motivation to drive down costs. Inflation is cost-based and a competitive system increases supply to answer demand. At some point, they begin competing for customers and that naturally drives down costs.

Government-funded services are not able to effectively scale or compete for costs. Most government-driven or -funded services are monopolies for the explicit purpose to eliminate competition and cost variation. Monopolies make sense for a nuclear power company where the costs of entry are so high, but it doesn’t make sense for healthcare providers where we should have a dynamic supply.

Profit-driven services have high interest in scaling up supply to meet demand. The supply of Government and non-profit services is at the whim of the amount of funding available or the legislated rate scheme. If we federalize healthcare, it will take an Act of Congress every time we need to scale the system or else we will have very real scarcity. Is that what you really want?


The biggest difference is that you have some recourse against your private health insurer if they do you dirty. You will have zero real recourse against a government system.

I think your conflating my thoughts on insurance vs providers. A single payer insurance system only nationalizes insurance, not care. It also creates competition in different ways that are - IMO - more compatible with societies expectations as they relate to healthcare.

The market is very good at balancing supply and demand if that's what you really want to do. The problem is that society doesn't want a system that maximizes profit by balancing supply and demand. If 1,000 people need cancer treatment, the free market might discover that profit is maximized when you provide care to 400. There is no supply/demand balance where all 1,000 people get treatment.

I think we're willing to tolerate an imperfect system, but we're not willing to tolerate one where huge swaths of people are simply priced out of treatment that could save their lives. If you're not willing to price people out of life saving treatment, then you can't argue that free-market principles are the cure to our health care costs.

So yes we need competition, but it has to be a bit different. I remember an old John Stossel Dateline bit on schools over in some random country (like Finland maybe). The public education system was completely choice based. So your kid was worth $7k or whatever, and whatever school you enrolled at got the money. You had plenty of choice and plenty of competition, with parents driving kids large distances to put them in schools focused on their needs or talents, but you had basically a "single payer" with all the cash coming from the government.

In that same sense, a single payer system would introduce competition that we don't have currently. Right now, we are all limited by the constraints of our health care plan in terms of what doctor we see, where we can get lab work done, etc. With a single payer system, every single provider accepts the same insurance (there's only one), so you can go wherever you want. That empowers consumers and gets providers to compete based on quality of care and services provided.

Nothing's perfect and trade offs are necessary.

 

[Boosted87]

I'm more than happy to have that discussion, but the uncomfortable truth that most people don't want to address is that the rising costs are predicated on the supplier first, and the intermediary second. Unless you're willing to say that doctors, nurses, and hospital staffs in general make too much money the conversation won't go anywhere.

I completely disagree that the rising costs are predicated on supplier first. Look at inflation adjusted salaries over time for providers compared to broader inflation in the industry.

Think about the health insurance industry as a whole, with a handful of large publicly traded for profits. They can compete with each other for market share, but they all benefit from a rising tide on razer thin margins. If healthcare inflates at 8% per year, then they get 8% growth on profits. As an industry, they have ZERO incentive to control inflation in healthcare. Actually, they are incentivized to do the opposite.

In the same sense, they are incentivized to maximize bloat. Why does it cost roughly 4x per person in administration expenses in the US vs Canada? Because the insurers are capturing 3% profit margins - bloat = more absolute profit. If we simply matched Canada on per capita administrative expense we would save $600b per year or $2,000 per person - like 16% of total costs.

 

[Knight In TN]

Apparently Nauti is getting nervous his health insurance is going to balk at footing a big part of his six-figure hospital stay when they discover he wasn't vaccinated for COVID.

They’ll get crushed in court if they do. Without a provision that he has to get vaccinated they have no chance of winning the inevitable lawsuit if they try to deny paying on that basis.

 

[DaShuckster]

They’ll get crushed in court if they do. Without a provision that he has to get vaccinated they have no chance of winning the inevitable lawsuit if they try to deny paying on that basis.

It was a joke.

 

[sk8knight]

I think your conflating my thoughts on insurance vs providers. A single payer insurance system only nationalizes insurance, not care. It also creates competition in different ways that are - IMO - more compatible with societies expectations as they relate to healthcare.

The market is very good at balancing supply and demand if that's what you really want to do. The problem is that society doesn't want a system that maximizes profit by balancing supply and demand. If 1,000 people need cancer treatment, the free market might discover that profit is maximized when you provide care to 400. There is no supply/demand balance where all 1,000 people get treatment.

I think we're willing to tolerate an imperfect system, but we're not willing to tolerate one where huge swaths of people are simply priced out of treatment that could save their lives. If you're not willing to price people out of life saving treatment, then you can't argue that free-market principles are the cure to our health care costs.

So yes we need competition, but it has to be a bit different. I remember an old John Stossel Dateline bit on schools over in some random country (like Finland maybe). The public education system was completely choice based. So your kid was worth $7k or whatever, and whatever school you enrolled at got the money. You had plenty of choice and plenty of competition, with parents driving kids large distances to put them in schools focused on their needs or talents, but you had basically a "single payer" with all the cash coming from the government.

In that same sense, a single payer system would introduce competition that we don't have currently. Right now, we are all limited by the constraints of our health care plan in terms of what doctor we see, where we can get lab work done, etc. With a single payer system, every single provider accepts the same insurance (there's only one), so you can go wherever you want. That empowers consumers and gets providers to compete based on quality of care and services provided.

Nothing's perfect and trade offs are necessary.

I see what you’re saying and maybe I was conflating in my argument. I’ll respond back when I get more time with a few more thoughts.

 

[Crazyhole]

I completely disagree that the rising costs are predicated on supplier first. Look at inflation adjusted salaries over time for providers compared to broader inflation in the industry.

Think about the health insurance industry as a whole, with a handful of large publicly traded for profits. They can compete with each other for market share, but they all benefit from a rising tide on razer thin margins. If healthcare inflates at 8% per year, then they get 8% growth on profits. As an industry, they have ZERO incentive to control inflation in healthcare. Actually, they are incentivized to do the opposite.

In the same sense, they are incentivized to maximize bloat. Why does it cost roughly 4x per person in administration expenses in the US vs Canada? Because the insurers are capturing 3% profit margins - bloat = more absolute profit. If we simply matched Canada on per capita administrative expense we would save $600b per year or $2,000 per person - like 16% of total costs.

You've just made my point without even knowing it. The problem isn't the 1-3% cut that insurance companies get, it's the rising costs that the hospitals and doctors charge that make that 1-3% a significant dollar amount.

 

[Boosted87]

You've just made my point without even knowing it. The problem isn't the 1-3% cut that insurance companies get, it's the rising costs that the hospitals and doctors charge that make that 1-3% a significant dollar amount.

So you're just going to ignore 15% of the total system costs are driven by administrative bloat via the insurers?

 

[Crazyhole]

So you're just going to ignore 15% of the total system costs are driven by administrative bloat via the insurers?

I think that number is BS to be honest. Insurers don't make their money on premiums vs layouts, they make it with the lag. At the end of the day, it's the suppliers that are getting the lions share of the money.

 

[Boosted87]

I think that number is BS to be honest. Insurers don't make their money on premiums vs layouts, they make it with the lag. At the end of the day, it's the suppliers that are getting the lions share of the money.

The data is what it is whether you think it's BS or not. Those admin expenses come from both sides though. Providers have to incur lots of admin expenses on their end to deal the system as well. It's one the big contrasts in our system versus single payer systems.

Credit card processing fees are annoying, but a few % on transactions economy wide is tolerable for all the friction it reduces in paying and getting paid. But if the processing administration of that system added 20% to costs? We'd think that's nuts.

 

[Knight In TN]

It was a joke.

Maybe try injecting some humor into your jokes from now on. That way people will be able to tell when you’re joking and when you’re just saying the normal absolute nonsense you usually say.

 

[Knight_Classes_begin_7pm]

Who do you think ultimately ends up paying the biggest share of a COVID patient's hospital bill? Is it coming from those sweeties at the insurance company or from the premiums it rakes in from everybody else they insure?

Whether its smokers or the COVID-19 unvaxxed, the rest of us shouldn't have to pay higher insurance premiums because some jokers deliberately choose to engage in risky behavior. This is another example of the self-righteous, "it's my choice" crowd suddenly changing their tune when it comes to footing their hospital bill. Then, suddenly, "we all have to pitch in together," right? What hypocrisy!

THIS^^^^^^^^^^ The old republican double standard

 

[Crazyhole]

THIS^^^^^^^^^^ The old republican double standard

^^^^you most likely have down syndrome and your extra chromosome is retarded.

 

[goodknightfl]

Stupidity is a preexisting condition. They are required to pay for that.

 

[UCFBS]

It's a good question. Should insurers deny coverage based on vax status arbitrarily in the middle of a coverage period ? Absolutely not. But do insurers have the right to tier coverage or increase premiums going forward based on vaccination? Absolutely. So reframe your question in a free market, pro-business kind of way. Should insurers be forced to subsidize the rates of their high-risk customers by spreading that risk (and cost) to their other customers?

But do understand once we go down that road ... We're talking about screwing over a lot of less fortunate people too.

I'm all for it, as a die-hard Capitalist-Libertarian because we've built a disincentivized American economy, as well built a food chain that is just full of crap. But we also have to hold a lot of entities to blame, from Food Inc. to Pharma for not offering better options too.

And that's always the problem ... it's not just the people who didn't get the mRNA vaccines that are the problem, when you dive into it.