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How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

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Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#241

Post by ars »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #231
arcticbull wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we can have one network every doctor is in, and the state pays for everything. All doctors are independent contractors to the state. Everything is paid for. There's one price for everything. Everyone is covered. All this garbage just disappears. Then there's one nice fee schedule like this, with all the prices on it, but it doesn't even matter, unless you're a physician doing your billing. [1] [edit] As you can se…

You don’t need to have the state pay. Make them charge the same price to all customers. Then you can have insurances compete. My body shop doesn’t charge one insurance $10/hr and another insurance $100/hr for the same work.

So many don't realize that this is entirely because Medicaid pays less than the cost of treatment. So hospitals make it up by charging other customers more.

If you actually wanted this then your taxes would go up because Medicaid expenses go up dramatically.

Maybe it's worth it - but at least be aware of what you are asking for.

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#242

Post by arcticbull »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #231
arcticbull wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we can have one network every doctor is in, and the state pays for everything. All doctors are independent contractors to the state. Everything is paid for. There's one price for everything. Everyone is covered. All this garbage just disappears. Then there's one nice fee schedule like this, with all the prices on it, but it doesn't even matter, unless you're a physician doing your billing. [1] [edit] As you can se…

You don’t need to have the state pay. Make them charge the same price to all customers. Then you can have insurances compete. My body shop doesn’t charge one insurance $10/hr and another insurance $100/hr for the same work.

> My body shop doesn’t charge one insurance $10/hr and another insurance $100/hr for the same work.

Do you know that for a fact?

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#243

Post by lotsofpulp »

owisd wrote: post #223
lotsofpulp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If insurers’ customers were not price sensitive, then they would have higher profit margins than 5%.

There’s no universal %margin on turnover that applies across all sectors that tells you whether a market is efficient or not. If I supply you widgets for $1000/ea and take a $50 management fee that we assume is fair for the work involved, then if there’s a shortage of widget materials that pushes the price up to $10000/ea, it’s no extra work for me so the fair management fee is still $50. If I charge $500 to keep the…

There are legions of people working at UHC/Anthen/CVS/Cigna/Humana/Molina/Centene trying to price insurance as competitively as possible to win as much business as possible. If they could price it lower and win more business, it is safe to assume they would be.

If they could price it higher, then why would they choose to only earn low single digit profit margins?

You have 7 huge publicly traded companies competing with each other, and unless there is proof of collusion, it is probably safe to conclude that they are running their businesses as well as they could be.

If you think otherwise, then you have discovered an arbitrage opportunity, which would be worth quite a bit so you should be able to pitch it to someone who wants to invest.

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#244

Post by whatshisface »

alxhill wrote: post #238
db48x wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the fact that it will eventually cause a supply shortage.

Germany has reference pricing for their drugs system and doesn't seem to have a supply issue. Genuine question, is there something that makes you think that wouldn't be true for the US?

How would anyone notice a shortage when shortages came in the from of it not being standard practice to prescribe a medicine in a certain situation?

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#245

Post by ars »

kstrauser wrote: post #57
dontcare007 wrote: post #22

Thanks again President Trump!

I'll admit, this is one thing, perhaps literally the only thing, he did that I think is excellent for individual Americans.

> I'll admit, this is one thing, perhaps literally the only thing, he did that

And the COVID vaccine?

Trump did a lot of good things, but he made everything about himself personally which overshadowed all his actions.

On a personal level Trump did a lot of stupid stuff, but on a policy level he didn't.

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#246

Post by lotsofpulp »

31835843 wrote: post #116
lotsofpulp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the competition who does not do that crap would offer lower premiums and steal business. Just like any other business that wasted money cannot compete with a business that does not waste money.

And this is only true in a markets that are easy to enter. Starting an insurance company isn’t easy. Why are profit margins only 5%? Could be many reasons, including collusion. Insurance companies have teams of lawyers whose job it is to navigate existing regulation, lobby for new ones and to push for ones that hurt competition. Given how shady and complex the entire industry is, we don’t really have a reason to beli…

Stating that SEC filings for an entire industry are fraudulent across 7+ large companies with tens of thousands of employees each is a pretty serious accusation that I cannot entertain without proof. The other option is I stop trusting in the whole system.

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#247

Post by ars »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #38

Anecdote: I recently had my yearly glasses update. Cost was $188 to me + $20 of insurance copay, so the glasses provider charged $208 for the glasses. That's not too bad, so I asked how much it would be to replace/update the lenses on my old frames, entirely at my charge. It would've been $450. Just for the lenses. I passed. I find it scandalous how much they can charge when just before they were perfectly happy to a…

You might not realize it, but often the insurance company, and the glasses company are the same company.

The whole thing is a scam - pay insurance premium, to lower the cost of glasses (the copay) back to what it should be in the first place.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica "the world's largest company in the eyewear industry" "It also owns EyeMed, one of the largest vision health insurance providers."

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#248

Post by lotsofpulp »

ledauphin wrote: post #129
lotsofpulp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also why wages and other transaction data (like it is for real estate in most states) should be public.

i don't follow this argument. thr salient point for me is that people should be able to see prices before they commit to contracting to pay them (e.g. by receiving healthcare). With wages, employees (and employers) get to see their price before committing. So the need for transparency seems like it would need a different justification.

Price transparency is necessary for market participants to observe the movements of the supply and demand curves.

For example, declining prices of labor indicate to suppliers of labor to reallocate labor supply to other fields.

Increasing prices of labor indicate to suppliers of labor to reallocate labor supply to that field.

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#249

Post by lotsofpulp »

corrral wrote: post #108
lotsofpulp wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never wrote they should. I am disputing the notion that they earn huge profits (“enormous scoop”). Which is trivially disproven by looking at their financials.

The "enormous scoop" refers to their incentive to drive prices higher so their "scoop" (the 5%) is bigger in absolute terms, I believe.

My point was that if they could control the size of the scoop, then why would they limit it to 5%, when they could legally be getting 15% or 20%?

Answer is that they do not control the size of the scoop (as the original poster I replied to implied).

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#250

Post by Zircom »

gnopgnip wrote: post #180
Olreich wrote: post #4

> “What we’re learning from the hospital data is that insurers are really bad at negotiating” Do the insurers have any incentive to negotiate well? Since their customers are not very price-sensitive (since they aren't marketing directly to patients or doctors), I would imagine they don't have a huge incentive to do anything but apply a markup to whatever prices the hospital tells them it costs.

Health insurance customers are price sensitive

Not really? I'm pretty sure the vast majority of health insurance customers are part of group plans from their employer and so the individual customers have very little influence or choice in the matter, and basically just have to put up with whatever bullshit the insurance companies throw at them since the alternative is seeking individual coverage separate from their employer and paying double or even triple in premiums alone.
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