Healthcare MANAGEMENT is SIMPLE, Healthcare is COMPLICATED

GottaGo said:

Insurance companies are a paid entity, and you used to be able to walk away from them (prior to the PPACA), and hopefully will be able to do so again in the near future. Insurance companies do not have the capabilities to impose restrictions if you are not their customer. You really don't have much option (other than leaving the country) if the government were to impose restrictions (legal or not).

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Insurance companies (especially working in concert) could definitely bring about restrictions. For example, if they aren’t willing to fund a treatment that requires specialist equipment and a hospital gets 90% of its business via the insurance companies, the hospitals are unlikely to buy the equipment at all. The insurance companies could even contractually mandate that the hospitals don’t provide services the insurance company doesn’t fund (to secure their business).

A governmental organisation in the same role could do the same things of course, and patients would have the same options. Government can impose restrictions across the board of course (such as through licencing pharmaceuticals) but that would be the same regardless of the funding model of the healthcare system.

Government plays pivotal role in making viable long term care plans for the citizens. A bad health care plan for the entire country may lead to a disaster. For damage control the democrats and republicans have to sort out this important issue and should not leave it for capitalists.