Health care costs choking small businesses (legal, drugs, premium, Obama)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
For all those who claim that health care in this country is OK. That we need to leave it alone. Consider this, if you work for a small business and your health insurance is partly covered by them you might become the newest uninsured American when your employer is no longer able to afford the outrageous prices set by health insurance companies. Even if you advocate for all of us to receive money and go purchase our OWN Health Insurance, with prices rising at a 10-20% rate every year, how can this be feasible?
According to the article about 60% of Americans without health insurance work for a small business. For all those who oppose Single Tax Payer health insurance and/or Universal health care or any intervention whatsoever. Do still you think the system is fine? Do you think this has to come back to each individual's "personal reponsiblity" to obtain their own health insurance and the government should stay out of it? With the economy being the way it is I can almost guarantee that more small businesses will drop or cut health insurance benefits for their employees, then what?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/13/small.business.health.care/index.html Maryland auto shop owner Brian England offers health care coverage to his 18 employees, including part-time staff. ... But every year his insurance premium costs rise another 10 or 20 percent, and England worries about the day when the fees will overwhelm him. After payroll and rent, health care is his largest business expense.
Last edited by gf1025; 06-13-2009 at 11:01 PM..
Reason: typo
Should we do nothing and leave it up to Health Insurance companies? Allow them to continue raising their prices 10-20% every year?
Isn't this the result of a lack of competition in healthcare? If so,then part of the solution to controlling healthcare costs would be increasing competition.
Quote:
In every area of our economy, when people compete for your business, consumers win. Prices drop and quality improves. And now there's good news: A little competition has begun to improve health care...
Is he accurate with this analysis? Why can't we buy policies in other states? What problems are supposed to be associated with this?
Quote:
The U.S. ranking is influenced heavily by the number of people — 45 million — without medical insurance. As I reported in previous columns, our government aggravates that problem by making insurance artificially expensive with, for example, mandates for coverage that many people would not choose and forbidding us to buy policies from companies in another state...
Isn't this the result of a lack of competition in healthcare? If so,then part of the solution to controlling healthcare costs would be increasing competition.
No, is actually the other way around. Since Health Insurance is for profit there are hundreds of health insurance companies and they spend millions on advertising and marketing. So as we stand there's plenty of competition! Our TVs are saturated with precription drugs commercials aren't they? Thay advertise all these different health insurance companies as well. Why do you think prescription drugs are so expensive? Well, they say is because of R&D but the truth is that's only a small fraction of their cost. They also have to factor in advertising (those ads on TV aren't cheap!!) and of course, profit.
I have a friend who works in the legal department for one of the biggest prescription companies in the world and he told me that they have to raise the cost of drugs because once the patent time expires the drug can be made by anyone and it becomes generic. Also, most "new drugs" aren't new they are a variation of existing drugs. Once the drug has a new name and is slightly varied the prescription drugs company can add a new pricetag and optain a new patent for the "new" drug.
Isn't this the result of a lack of competition in healthcare? If so,then part of the solution to controlling healthcare costs would be increasing competition.
"Competition" in health care is not the same as competition in sellilng cars, or toys, or anything else. Insurance companies reimburse on a "usual and customary" rate for a geographic area. Providers all charge about the same. That is not a model for competition. Besides, do you want to go to the provider that charges the least? Maybe s/he isn't as competent.
Isn't this the result of a lack of competition in healthcare? If so,then part of the solution to controlling healthcare costs would be increasing competition.
Competition is good but if health care is too high to start with it's still going to take something more to get the price down to where average Americans can afford it.
AND INSURANCE companies will STILL be deciding IF you get treatment and what it will be!!!!!
Should we do nothing and leave it up to Health Insurance companies? Allow them to continue raising their prices 10-20% every year?
It's called "regulation".
If the government want's to help out in this case, then they can help by regulating the industry at large.
Many states have public service commissions that energy companies have to go through in order to raise their rates. If an energy company cannot justify a rate increase, then the state says no to the rate increase.
Regulation may be looked upon as government interference by some, but without it, we can all see the alternative.
Regulation, to various degrees absolutely will not hurt competition, as some have erroniously claimed. It instead adds a level of accountabilty to the private sector that has been grossly lacking in this country for the past 20 or so years.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
