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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

#151

Post by ajross »

akramachamarei wrote: post #150
ajross wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguments about words are a little woke for my taste. Fine fine, pretend I said "convince" and then reply to that. Thanks.

I'm beginning to think you don't understand the words "argument" or "woke" either.... But anyway, I'm merely pointing out for the sake of readers that insurance companies are engaging willingly (and very gainfully) in this arrangement, so as to not oversell the power of the collective bargaining enabled by uniting coemployed health insurance buyers. I guess I would just question whether this collective bargaining is…

[dead]

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

#152

Post by snapplebobapple »

The problem is public is also terrible. What makes the difference is the ecosystem of policy and enforcement. Without that it will always>just find unique ways to be terrible. Look at my home coubtry of Canada. Also terrible just in completely different ways.

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

#153

Post by 999900000999 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #137
999900000999 wrote: post #34

We could easily do this and it would actually be significantly cheaper. But I can’t imagine it happening nationwide. Maybe cities can create their own public options, say a flat 3% income tax and you get health insurance. So much progress isn’t made in the US due to the welfare queen myth. Heavily intertwined with racism, many imagine “lazy” people getting something they didn’t absolutely earn.

The reason the "myth" persists is because there are some folks who take advantage of the system like this. In fact, many people personally know someone who's doing this. We can debate what percentage of recipients it is and whether we should worry about it or not, but it's a non-zero number. Framing it like some kind of racist trope is disingenuous and only works because of America's existing racial tensions. In Cana…

With a military budget of 1.5 trillion I don’t care if a few people get some crumbs.

Not everyone can start a defense contractor and get no bid contracts.

I’d say flat tax rate + UBI + single payer. The tax code should be a sentence. 25% of income or capital gains.

Social security and all other income transfers would be phased out.

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

#154

Post by insane_dreamer »

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 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

I disagree. We went over healthcare benefits with a fine tooth comb when my wife was deciding to take a position. It certainly mattered.

Another factor is that even if the employer covers nothing and you have to pay the entire premium, just being able to buy the plan through the employer is _significantly_ cheaper than buying it as an individual.

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

#155

Post by SlightlyLeftPad »

TitaRusell wrote: post #142
SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That “lazy people” getting something they didn’t absolutely earn is a core right wing narrative that has been very successfully propagandized for decades. People are still going to need work to pay for everything else. No one is going to stop working once the crushing weight of medical debt is lifted. It’s easy to debunk but I don’t see much effort going into this right now.

Doctors take an oath to treat everyone. Conservatives may say that poor people deserve to die in a ditch no doctor is going to let that happen. I don't know about you but I don't want my GP to be a Mengele!

I think it’s well known that the problems we have with healthcare in the US are not caused by the doctors.

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

#156

Post by ajmurmann »

mminer237 wrote: post #149
Ajedi32 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Employers get huge tax incentives for providing insurance, while individuals don't. This ensures that the only economical way to buy health insurance is through an employer, which means you are not free to change plans without changing employers (or change employers without changing plans).

The only tax incentive for employers is deducting it as a business expense. I.e., paying with pre-tax income. Individuals can also do that if self-employed. Individuals are the one with huge tax benefits under the ACA. Last year, the government paid 73% of my health insurance premiums as a tax credit.

"if self-employed" is a big if here

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

#157

Post by Taikonerd »

ajross wrote: post #140
Taikonerd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was there are lots of models available, not just 2. My post above wasn't endorsing one in particular. I would say that the ACA is on the free market-ish side of the design space: individuals purchasing (subsidized) insurance from private companies.

> My point was there are lots of models available, not just 2. My post above wasn't endorsing one in particular. Yeah, so... my question stands: name one you're thinking of, even if you qualify that it isn't an "endorsement". I contend there isn't one and you're fooling yourself.

Name a healthcare model that's neither a 100% free-market model, nor a fully-socialized model like the NHS? OK, how about...

* Medicare in the US (single-payer, private providers)

* Medicare Advantage in the US (government provides capitated payments to competing private companies, which then do all the administration work)

* The Singaporean system (complicated, but revolves around mandatory payments to HSAs)

etc.

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

#158

Post by ajmurmann »

kiicia wrote: post #11
ajmurmann wrote: post #5

Good article in general but such a misleading headline and framing. The problem, as described in the article's body, is employer-provided health insurance, not private healthcare.

it's connected via vicious cycle private healthcare is getting more and more expensive due to private prices available to bulk insurers but not for private person even if this is not completely deliberate, effect is that you are "serf of whomever pays your insurance" or go bankrupt the moment you have any kind of emergency in europe some private healthcare providers are showing their colors from different perspective…

It's private health insurance that's getting more expensive. Private healthcare is a different beast: https://www.econtalk.org/keith-smith-on-free-market-health-c...

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

#159

Post by maerF0x0 »

reticulates wrote: post #102
maerF0x0 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’ll find that most everyone living with socialized healthcare believes it to be adequate when compared to the U.S. system This is not true for Canadians. Many have to travel to the US, India, or otherwise abroad to purchase the healthcare they desire which is not available to them in Canada. In Canada you have to get sick enough for the system to triage you into the quotas. But maybe you want to stay healthy bef…

The conclusion you're drawing does not follow. Canadians can be frustrated with the Canadian healthcare system and also believe it to be adequate when compared to the U.S. healthcare system. Canadians who are surveyed about healthcare typically say: the system is broken and needs to be fixed AND the socialized nature of it must be protected. Canadians are unhappy with underfunding, Canadians want more funding, they d…

Based on my exposure to Canadians, they lament how much tax they pay, and they're unhappy with the single provider monopoly where their pets can get faster and better care for cash than they can get themselves.

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

#160

Post by maerF0x0 »

Grombobulous wrote: post #131
maerF0x0 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single payer maybe, but single provider? Never.

While I agree that there’s probably a benefit of diversifying providers in most situations, I would take single provider over “I can’t afford care at all.” Also, single provider countries like the UK still have private healthcare. A LOT of private healthcare. This idea that single provider/single payer will make most people’s care worse and remove everyone’s options has felt to me a lot like industry propaganda.

So long as there is a relatively open market, where companies who wish to compete can do so fairly (ie the gov't isn't making them play with a handicap), I'm open to a public fund for some forms of healthcare expenditures with a cap.

One of the challenges about talking about the subject is that it's often spoken in absolutes, instead of the spectrum and mosaic that healthcare is.

for example you could have a socialized subsidy to healthcare expenditure (like Canada does for Universities). You could have certain things be free for anyone, like maybe certain kinds of preventative care. You could have a periodic or lifetime cap for example maybe we say "We cap your lifetime care at 500K, sometimes life sucks and we're not going to bankrupt the country to try and save every last person"

But unfortunately nuance is very uncomfortable to discuss

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