Health care spending in US exceeds $2 trillion per year

[teatime]

As long as you look for "free market" solutions, those with the most desperate need for affordable coverage and care WON'T be covered! Why? Because the "free market" doesn't want them, can't make a profit from them, and won't have to cover them.

The "free market" denies coverage and/or paying for the care of those with "pre-existing conditions." It also uses group demographics to decide if it will cover a group and at what premiums. For instance, a company that has a greater-than-typical number of women who are of child-bearing age will pay much higher premiums for their its employees because of the "risk" of greater maternity and mother-and-child costs.

My "favorite" encounter with a former insurer was when they refused to pay for my annual "Well Woman" exam, citing a "pre-existing condition." There WAS no condition -- this was preventative care, an exam! The results of the exam were perfectly normal! So, what was the pre-existing condition? Ha, the fact that I'm female! I took it up their chain of command to a supervisor and she was actually quite embarrassed. They did pay, in the end. But how nuts is that?!

This is what can be expected from any candidate who says he wants to reform health care by using the "free market."

[Bob The Builder]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye48

If you're wealthy we have the best healthcare system in the world. If you're poor we have a terrible one. We need a national healthcare system. We need to take the profit out of it. We need to take the insurance angle out of it.

I concur. How much of the insurance dollar is being sucked up by the brokers? The higher the premium, the bigger the commission.

I had a building a few years ago. My fire insurance went from 2100, 3500, 11,000 to 18,000 in the course of 5 years. It turns out that two sets of brokers were collecting commissions of over 6k.

I would imagine that there is a lot of commission that is stacked into health premiums.