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- Insurance is provided by multiple entities and funded by smalller groups of people via premiums.
- different "plans" are offered with varying degrees of coverage, with co-pays and deductables.
- An insurance "pool" is formed from these payers and is used to fund healthcare for the uninsured, customers are essentially providing "socialized insurance" by paying higher premiums to cover the uninsured.
- Higher overhead costs due to non-health related expenses, insurance employees salaries, marketing, money for lobbying politicians, etc.
- Physicians are required to hire staff specifically to deal with insurance claims and nothing else (what an abomination), again increasing costs to the customer.
- Insurance company dictates which hospitals and physicians that the customer can use.
Single payer (public insurance):
- Insurance is provided by one entity and funded by an entire population via payroll, income, and consumption taxes
- Cradle to grave coverage for all medically necessary treatment. There
are no "plans".
- Nobody is uninsured, coverage is universal, all citizens are covered automatically.
- Customer is free to chose their own physician and can switch to another one without much hassle. You just fill out some forms from your new doctor.
- Low overhead
- Physicians do not require any staff for insurance claims. All claims are sent directly to the payer using a fee schedule. Customer only needs to provide his/her health card at physician's office.
- Insurance is provided by multiple entities and funded by smalller groups of people via premiums.
- different "plans" are offered with varying degrees of coverage, with co-pays and deductables.
- An insurance "pool" is formed from these payers and is used to fund healthcare for the uninsured, customers are essentially providing "socialized insurance" by paying higher premiums to cover the uninsured.
- Higher overhead costs due to non-health related expenses, insurance employees salaries, marketing, money for lobbying politicians, etc.
- Physicians are required to hire staff specifically to deal with insurance claims and nothing else (what an abomination), again increasing costs to the customer.
- Insurance company dictates which hospitals and physicians that the customer can use.
Single payer (public insurance):
- Insurance is provided by one entity and funded by an entire population via payroll, income, and consumption taxes
- Cradle to grave coverage for all medically necessary treatment. There
are no "plans".
- Nobody is uninsured, coverage is universal, all citizens are covered automatically.
- Customer is free to chose their own physician and can switch to another one without much hassle. You just fill out some forms from your new doctor.
- Low overhead
- Physicians do not require any staff for insurance claims. All claims are sent directly to the payer using a fee schedule. Customer only needs to provide his/her health card at physician's office.
That makes too much sense. Therefore, not gonna happen here because "freedumb"
- Insurance is provided by multiple entities and funded by smalller groups of people via premiums.
- different "plans" are offered with varying degrees of coverage, with co-pays and deductables.
- An insurance "pool" is formed from these payers and is used to fund healthcare for the uninsured, customers are essentially providing "socialized insurance" by paying higher premiums to cover the uninsured.
- Higher overhead costs due to non-health related expenses, insurance employees salaries, marketing, money for lobbying politicians, etc.
- Physicians are required to hire staff specifically to deal with insurance claims and nothing else (what an abomination), again increasing costs to the customer.
- Insurance company dictates which hospitals and physicians that the customer can use.
Single payer (public insurance):
- Insurance is provided by one entity and funded by an entire population via payroll, income, and consumption taxes
- Cradle to grave coverage for all medically necessary treatment. There
are no "plans".
- Nobody is uninsured, coverage is universal, all citizens are covered automatically.
- Customer is free to chose their own physician and can switch to another one without much hassle. You just fill out some forms from your new doctor.
- Low overhead
- Physicians do not require any staff for insurance claims. All claims are sent directly to the payer using a fee schedule. Customer only needs to provide his/her health card at physician's office.
No question it would remove a lot of inefficiencies like billing, collections, advertising etc.
However, have you ever worked in insurance? Ever seen government run insurance plans "go bad"?
If not, let me point out some real world issues to offset your on-paper utopian version of how things would work.
1) Governments notorious inefficiency. No competition is always a gain.
2) Lack of accountability and consequence, can't fine and penalize a govt. institution for bad actions or poor performance etc. (Think VA hospital problems in the news)
3) Lobbyists and corruption to provide equipment, drugs etc. will still be prevalent.
4) Politics. Budgets get tight, nobody wants to raise rates and face the voters so they cut service etc. or other actions. (Florida has a state run insurance plan for home insurance like this.)
I'm actually not against single payer but I've seen govt. insurance plans turn into boondoggles. The national flood insurance plan for example has LOTS of issues for decades, some of which have been addressed in recent years but they bled tax dollars for ages.
- Insurance is provided by multiple entities and funded by smalller groups of people via premiums.
- different "plans" are offered with varying degrees of coverage, with co-pays and deductables.
- An insurance "pool" is formed from these payers and is used to fund healthcare for the uninsured, customers are essentially providing "socialized insurance" by paying higher premiums to cover the uninsured.
- Higher overhead costs due to non-health related expenses, insurance employees salaries, marketing, money for lobbying politicians, etc.
- Physicians are required to hire staff specifically to deal with insurance claims and nothing else (what an abomination), again increasing costs to the customer.
- Insurance company dictates which hospitals and physicians that the customer can use.
Single payer (public insurance):
- Insurance is provided by one entity and funded by an entire population via payroll, income, and consumption taxes
- Cradle to grave coverage for all medically necessary treatment. There
are no "plans".
- Nobody is uninsured, coverage is universal, all citizens are covered automatically.
- Customer is free to chose their own physician and can switch to another one without much hassle. You just fill out some forms from your new doctor.
- Low overhead
- Physicians do not require any staff for insurance claims. All claims are sent directly to the payer using a fee schedule. Customer only needs to provide his/her health card at physician's office.
No question it would remove a lot of inefficiencies like billing, collections, advertising etc.
However, have you ever worked in insurance? Ever seen government run insurance plans "go bad"?
If not, let me point out some real world issues to offset your on-paper utopian version of how things would work.
1) Governments notorious inefficiency. No competition is always a gain.
2) Lack of accountability and consequence, can't fine and penalize a govt. institution for bad actions or poor performance etc. (Think VA hospital problems in the news)
3) Lobbyists and corruption to provide equipment, drugs etc. will still be prevalent.
4) Politics. Budgets get tight, nobody wants to raise rates and face the voters so they cut service etc. or other actions. (Florida has a state run insurance plan for home insurance like this.)
I'm actually not against single payer but I've seen govt. insurance plans turn into boondoggles. The national flood insurance plan for example has LOTS of issues for decades, some of which have been addressed in recent years but they bled tax dollars for ages.
So what's wrong with Medicare, and why is it when you talk to an old person and tell them they should give up their Medicare, they tell you to go pound sand?
So what's wrong with Medicare, and why is it when you talk to an old person and tell them they should give up their Medicare, they tell you to go pound sand?
Medicare works so good because deficit spending helps to fund it.
Single payer would cost more, not less, than current schemes.
Because more people covered means more medical encounters and more patients get more done. It might be cheaper per encounter, but there would be many more encounters. Unless we ration. And Americans don't like rationing aside from war.
At least in Canada government departments and officials can be fined or even imprisoned for breaking regulations from other government departments. If competition always gave more efficient results then why are not streets, sidewalks or law enforcement ran by the free market forces? The cost to provide healthcare per capital is less in Canada than in the United States and often the reason for waiting lists and wait times is lack of trained personal rather than funds and that can mostly be blamed on lack of funds going into the education of medical professionals and I for one think it is wrong to be raiding third world countries for their doctors and technicians just because we have more money that they do not need any doctors.
In the nineties in Alberta Canada we had a conservative government led by Ralph Klein that was driven to privatize as many public services as possible but when it came time to do so for the prisons the prison union challenged the government to prove that it would save money. So the government that wanted to sell off the prisons hired a consultant of their choice to show if it was cost effective and guess what, our prisons are still run by the government. The consultant report found that private enterprise cost more per prisoner and led to much less rehabitation .
The reason for bringing this up is the mantra that private enterprise and competition is always better is simply dogma. It may be true for some things or even most things but that does not mean it is for everything.
Medicare works so good because deficit spending helps to fund it.
Single payer would cost more, not less, than current schemes.
Because more people covered means more medical encounters and more patients get more done. It might be cheaper per encounter, but there would be many more encounters. Unless we ration. And Americans don't like rationing aside from war.
Are you not proposing that you ration health care to those who can get insurance and leave out those who do not or cannot get it? Also you are assuming things like preventative medicine or treating illnesses in their early stages are as expensive as treatment in a more advanced stage for everyone. In the end the US pays more per capita than other developed countries that have a higher rated healthcare system. And for me as a Canadian if I need special treatments only available in the US and it is covered I can go and my health care covers it and I will live however the US person who does not have insurance in the adjacent state does not get his treatment in the same US facility paid for.
Also if each state ran their own health care a person may choose to move to another state because it has better health care. That happens in Canada that if a person needs a particular service other than the core ones they may move from a province that does not have that service to one that does. An provinces or countries that run surplus budgets can also have publicly funded health care.
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