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Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

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Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#51

Post by reticulates »

Synthetic7346 wrote: post #20

One thing that's never been clear to me is how either system plans on scaling healthcare. You have X doctors who can see (just a guess) 30X patients. Unless the number of doctors increase, some patients are going to be left out. In the current system it's those without employment. I'm other countries there's a waitlist. How can we make sure there's enough staff to provide adequate healthcare for everyone?

The U.S. has waitlists too? The U.S. makes people wait based on how much money they have, socialized healthcare systems make people wait based on an assessment of need. The latter is obviously better, even though it is not perfect. You’ll find that most everyone living with socialized healthcare believes it to be adequate when compared to the U.S. system. Adequate does not mean without flaws, adequate doesn’t mean available on demand, adequate means has good outcomes. Very few countries with a similar economy have as poor healthcare outcomes as the U.S.

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#52

Post by cmiles74 »

abeppu wrote: post #25

In the US market, where union participation is also very low, it's weird to me that this is an important reason people stay in their jobs, may influence what kind of jobs you take (full time vs contracting?), but: - job offers generally do not want to get into details on the health insurance offering. it's not a main "competition" point - except when subject to some kind of union negotiated contract, the employer can…

It's really tough on people with a particular health condition and it can turn into an additional expense if a critical provider is suddenly out-of-network. Employers have definitely given me side eye when I've asked for details on the health insurance plan.

United Healthcare is pretty big in the US, they are also famous for forcing people to spend a lot of time on the phone, waiting on hold or advocating for care. I expect this ends up taking time that the employee would otherwise have been working as well as negatively impacting morale.

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#53

Post by [deleted] »

Synthetic7346 wrote: post #20

One thing that's never been clear to me is how either system plans on scaling healthcare. You have X doctors who can see (just a guess) 30X patients. Unless the number of doctors increase, some patients are going to be left out. In the current system it's those without employment. I'm other countries there's a waitlist. How can we make sure there's enough staff to provide adequate healthcare for everyone?

[deleted]

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#54

Post by Ajedi32 »

megaman821 wrote: post #12

This is less about private healthcare and more about how employer-provided healthcare is tax advantaged. Credits and tax breaks should go to the individual so they can choose and keep their insurance through different jobs.

Yes, the title gave me whiplash because I went in expecting an argument for socialized healthcare, then read a couple paragraphs and realized the article was actually presenting an argument against government meddling in the healthcare industry, then read further and realized it was actually using the problems created by government meddling in the healthcare industry to argue for more government meddling.

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#56

Post by mattmcknight »

ajross wrote: post #19
Taikonerd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the article sort of conflates the two. It's funny that he (accurately) quotes the Cato Institute as being opposed to employer-provided health insurance... and then implies that the sole alternative is the NHS. Um, I'm pretty sure that's not what the libertarian Cato Institute was suggesting!

With all respect: what exactly is the alternative you're imagining? The market emphatically did not provide accessible private health care to individuals, largely because of the wellness trap (no one buys insurance until they need it). It existed only as extremely expensive boutique products until the government put its regulatory thumb on the scale and passed the ACA. Employer health care may have bad externalities,…

> It existed only as extremely expensive boutique products until the government put its regulatory thumb on the scale and passed the ACA.

100% untrue. There were affordable catastrophic coverage plans available, and many were made illegal by the ACA and the requirement to provide boutique services for "free" (i.e., forced to pay for even if you don't use).

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#58

Post by dudul »

abeppu wrote: post #25

In the US market, where union participation is also very low, it's weird to me that this is an important reason people stay in their jobs, may influence what kind of jobs you take (full time vs contracting?), but: - job offers generally do not want to get into details on the health insurance offering. it's not a main "competition" point - except when subject to some kind of union negotiated contract, the employer can…

It may just be a me thing, but when discussing a job offer I always ask for details about the health insurance. I want to see the premiums, what is covered, the networks, etc. All the details given to current employees when they go through open enrollment. And I can count on one hand the times where it was difficult to obtain from the recruiter or "HR lady".

That being said, nothing tells me the plans won't completely change in a few months of course. That's just the "game" and I also hate it.

Just give me the money directly and let me pick my plan from a marketplace that doesn't suck balls. If employers still want to give some incentives to be more competitive fine, but I shouldn't have to time my job switching to avoid coverage gaps.

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#59

Post by Schlagbohrer »

It also kills many, many people, so, the profit motive needs to be permanently and forever abolished from healthcare. In the US doctors look at patients with dollar signs in their eyes and simply ask, "How much money can I squeeze out of this NPC?" leading to countless abuses, from unecessary and harmful procedures being forced on non-consenting patients (like infant genital mutilation) to denial of needed healthcare because it isn't profitable enough and has an opportunity cost.

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#60

Post by sarchertech »

megaman821 wrote: post #12

This is less about private healthcare and more about how employer-provided healthcare is tax advantaged. Credits and tax breaks should go to the individual so they can choose and keep their insurance through different jobs.

You can deduct some of your medical expenses. I think it’s over 7.5% of your AGI.

But tax deduction or not isn’t what makes individual health insurance so expensive. When you have employer provided health insurance you’re in a completely different risk pool than people buying on the open market.

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