Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
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Re: Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
#2True.
OTOH, this is a world where many people get yelling-and-cursing angry with a bottom-tier Post Office clerk in (say) Podunk, Montana over the latest increase in the price of 1st Class postage stamps. When that decision was made by a bunch of executives in Washington DC. Whose names the clerk doesn't even know.
Re: Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
#3True. OTOH, this is a world where many people get yelling-and-cursing angry with a bottom-tier Post Office clerk in (say) Podunk, Montana over the latest increase in the price of 1st Class postage stamps. When that decision was made by a bunch of executives in Washington DC. Whose names the clerk doesn't even know.
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Re: Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
#4Yep, for-profit healthcare is a bad idea. It's the main reason our USA healthcare costs so much.
Re: Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
#5It’s not a matter of profit. It’s a matter of costs.
From the graphic the insurers take in $371.6b and pay out $241.9b in medical services costs.
That’s $130b on a pointless activity that uses up physical resources that would be better deployed elsewhere in the economy.
Healthcare needs to be provided as a matter of course, and “competition” won’t improve it or control it because there is always a supply side shortage of provision.
That’s a difficult problem to solve, but solving it by forcing a huge bill on expectant mothers and cancer victims, etc in a futile attempt to control demand is not the way.
Which is why the rest of the world charts a different path.
Re: Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
#6They are not solely responsible, but of course they bear some responsibility. ACA has a Medical Loss Ratio that requires insurers to spend 80% or 85% of premium revenue on medical services "thereby limiting administrative costs and profits to the remaining 15-20 percent."[1] In other words the only way for them grow profits is to increase cost.
This guy is way out of his depth.
[1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/external_publications/EP71133.html
Re: Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
#7It’s not a matter of profit. It’s a matter of costs. From the graphic the insurers take in $371.6b and pay out $241.9b in medical services costs. That’s $130b on a pointless activity that uses up physical resources that would be better deployed elsewhere in the economy. Healthcare needs to be provided as a matter of course, and “competition” won’t improve it or control it because there is always a supply side shortag…
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Re: Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
#8It has always been pretty clear to me.
Same medical equipment, infrastructure, education elsewhere in the world is often 30-50 times cheaper. The providers just charge as they want because people will pay their fortune to live, just like lawyers.
Re: Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
#9It’s not a matter of profit. It’s a matter of costs. From the graphic the insurers take in $371.6b and pay out $241.9b in medical services costs. That’s $130b on a pointless activity that uses up physical resources that would be better deployed elsewhere in the economy. Healthcare needs to be provided as a matter of course, and “competition” won’t improve it or control it because there is always a supply side shortag…
It’s neither a matter of profits nor costs. It’s a matter of incentives. The basic principle of capitalism can’t work if the buyer doesn’t have a choice, if the buyer is not the one who usually pays, and if the payer has a way of avoiding responsibility to pay. The privatized health insurance system is truly and completely fucked up.
Re: Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)
#10They are not solely responsible, but of course they bear some responsibility. ACA has a Medical Loss Ratio that requires insurers to spend 80% or 85% of premium revenue on medical services "thereby limiting administrative costs and profits to the remaining 15-20 percent."[1] In other words the only way for them grow profits is to increase cost. This guy is way out of his depth. [1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/external_…
> This guy is way out of his depth.
He does that a lot, tbf