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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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for saying so. Flooding the market with cheap, low-quality crude would drop the price of gasoline, but it'd be horrid for the environment.

If you really think the war on fossil fuels in the West is in the citizen's best interests, you are delusional. In the West everything is a scam. Our health system is a scam, the military industrial complex is a scam, our education system is a scam, our currency is a scam, our media is a scam, the president is a scam. What makes you think that ANYTHING going on in the West ISN'T a scam?

>> West

I think you meant USA

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

#192
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is one of the more unfortunate unintended consequences of the ACA.

"unintended" Insurance companies wrote the bill.

Parts of it, but it’s not clear that MLR was one of those parts or even a net positive for insurers.

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

#193
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health insurers in the US have a cap on how much of premiums can go to profits.

Doesn't that just mean that they have an interest in keeping these costs high ? The higher the costs, the larger that % is for the in absolute dollars. If all the costs come down, they are allowed to make less money.

Yes, I agree that price controls set by the state are a bad idea.

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

#194

"Doctors hate this simple trick to reduce ." That's the strange spam message I could never understand. Surely doctors would be delighted at any method to improve health? So I always assumed the "trick" to be quackery with dangerous side effects. After all, why else would "doctors hate it"? Eventually I realised these messages are exclusively US American, the only place on the planet where doctors could plausibly rese…

It's not that doctors resent people improving their health, it's that people are wary of their healthcare services existing in a for-profit system- these types of scams play to the paranoia and fear that people associate with medical establishments selling treatments rather than establishing preventative health. Basically it boils down to the sentiment people generally have that doctors benefit from sick people becau…

Simply put, it's a trust issue.

I think in many places people establish a relationship with their primary doctor, where the Dr knows them and their medical history in detail. Growing up, my family doctor had treated my family for generations and was familiar with me as a person even though I did not have many appointments.

But since I've moved to America most of my Dr. appointments are focused on the issue I am having as opposed to treating me for an issue. The Dr skims through my medical history to see if the issue relates to anything relevant. The appointments are hurried and impersonal.

There is a business aspect to medicine in America- it's business more than it is healthcare, really. I have often felt more like I am going in for maintenance like a machine than going in to speak to someone who uses their knowledge to help me be the healthiest I can be.

I know a lot of people here who also go to doctors and have their issues dismissed, minimized, or attributed to stress- and leave without any sense of what to do, besides grab a prescription or see a specialist. There is a helplessness I perceive in many people, and some end up with many prescriptions for different things and later find out there is an underlying issue that was overlooked all along. There are many many stories of people whose problems may not have persisted so long if their medical providers had communicated better- which perhaps most of them have no incentive to do, because this is time consuming and therefore loses them time/money. Whereas in a system where private doctors have to conpete with state provided healthcare, my anecdotal belief, they have an incentive to do better.

Anyway, having an impersonal system leaves people feeling like they need to look for solutions themselves, looking for hope at a cheaper price than a stack of copays and possibly having to deal with waiting long times for referrals. This is also true of anyone anywhere feeling desperate and looking for some control in regards to their health problems. So this opens the door to a market of people offering miracle cures. Just happens to be there is a lot of distrust baked into the reality that healthcare in America prioritizes profit over people.

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

#195
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is one of the more unfortunate unintended consequences of the ACA.

Insurance costs were increasing at a higher rate each year before the ACA was passed or went into effect.

The rate of growth didn’t go negative or to 0, it just slowed down.

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

#196
post #161
post #80

Very soon we'll have Congressional hearings after oil companies see profits climb 7000 percent over last year, and they'll look sad and do nothing. I expect much the same from health insurance companies.

I'd be curious how their profits compare to pre covid profits given then many oil companies were losing a lot during covid due to sharp drop in demand.

Thankfully, that data is public. [0]

And it's still damning. Billions of dollars of profit were made, every single quarter. I have absolutely no sympathy for these companies, especially when they also likely received huge sums of cash from the federal government for this "sharp drop in demand".

>Over 10 percent of the more than 7,000 oil, gas, and petrochemical companies that received PPP funds totaling between $3 billion and $6 billion reported no jobs retained as a result of the loan. The CEOs of Exxon and Chevron got raises in 2020, while Exxon announced that it is suspending the company’s contribution to the US employee retirement savings plan beginning in October and Chevron is cutting 6,700 workers around the globe [1]

0. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XOM/exxon/gross-pr...

1. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/bailout-billions-dollars-f...

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

#197

"Doctors hate this simple trick to reduce ." That's the strange spam message I could never understand. Surely doctors would be delighted at any method to improve health? So I always assumed the "trick" to be quackery with dangerous side effects. After all, why else would "doctors hate it"? Eventually I realised these messages are exclusively US American, the only place on the planet where doctors could plausibly rese…

It's not that doctors resent people improving their health, it's that people are wary of their healthcare services existing in a for-profit system- these types of scams play to the paranoia and fear that people associate with medical establishments selling treatments rather than establishing preventative health. Basically it boils down to the sentiment people generally have that doctors benefit from sick people becau…

Yea, it appeals to the same brain matter that conspiracy theorists appeal to: "The mainstream is wrong, and only we few lucky people know the real truth! are lying to you with their awful _complexity_ and _nuance_ so they can take your money, and hate our truth because it is simple and doesn't let them take your money."

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that just mean that they have an interest in keeping these costs high ? The higher the costs, the larger that % is for the in absolute dollars. If all the costs come down, they are allowed to make less money.

Yes. Although painted by reactionaries as a communist plot, ACA was modeled after Massachusetts’ “Romneycare”. It’s typical old school GOP policy of leveraging private sector actors with public sector dollars. It’s not awful policy, but did create bad cost incentives and encourages cartel like health networks.

You don’t need to be a reactionary to see that it was very poorly written and that the implementation was even worse.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really think the war on fossil fuels in the West is in the citizen's best interests, you are delusional. In the West everything is a scam. Our health system is a scam, the military industrial complex is a scam, our education system is a scam, our currency is a scam, our media is a scam, the president is a scam. What makes you think that ANYTHING going on in the West ISN'T a scam?

>> West I think you meant USA

USA especially but also Western Europe.

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

#200
post #162
post #2

I'm one of the co-founders of Turquoise Health, mentioned in the article here. We've been downloading and parsing this data all day. It's a really big deal in the industry that the prices that insurance companies pay doctors are now being shared publicly. It will have all sorts of positive impacts over time, hopefully making rate negotiations more consistent and fair between different insurance plans. Right now, 10x…

Another proof that more transparency decreases corruption and improves efficiency?

Once it's been shown to work it may be proof.

The track record of healthcare reforms intended to cut costs is rather abysmal.

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