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From here: Republican makes first move to work with Democrats on healthcare - excerpt:
However, just how unprofitable is private HC-insurance that premiums must be raised? Not at all! See here: Profits are booming at Health Insurance Companies - excerpt:
Something is very, very wrong with private insurance companies who profit from Health Care by Price Gouging. Health Care should be provided by the Federal government, just as is National Defense. Had the US a tried-and-true National HealthCare System, HC-providers would be obliged to accept government regulated prices for services rendered. And total costs would be far lower.
In the US, for example, a GP makes $200K a year (Bureau of Labor Statistics data from here). In Europe, the average GP does not even make half that amount ... and yet they have well-paying jobs.
Health Care in the US is a typical example of Price Gouging on behalf of both a Profession and Health Care Insurers. For a service as important as Health Care is to the nation, we should have the Federal Government providing it at affordable prices in hospitals it runs.
Which is how Health Care is done elsewhere in the world, and why those systems are rated better than ours in the US. See that sad fact underscored here: Country Rankings - National Health Care
The Tennessee Republican said the Senate health committee "will hold hearings beginning the week of September 4 on the actions Congress should take to stabilize and strengthen the individual health insurance market so that Americans will be able to buy insurance at affordable prices in the year 2018."
Trump, frustrated that he and Republicans have not been able to keep promises to repeal and replace Obamacare, has threatened to let the law implode, including by cutting off about $8 billion in subsidies that are used to make Obamacare health plans more affordable for low income Americans.
Insurers, who are finalizing their insurance premium rates for 2018, have asked Congress to guarantee that those funds will stay in place for the rest of this year and 2018. Without the subsidies, they say they will need to raise premium rates by about 20 percent.
Without an answer, insurers have filed preliminary rates based on different parameters: Some set rates that assumed the subsidies would be paid, others set rates that assumed they would not, and some submitted two different set of rates reflecting both outcomes.
However, just how unprofitable is private HC-insurance that premiums must be raised? Not at all! See here: Profits are booming at Health Insurance Companies - excerpt:
The largest health insurance companies in the United States reaped historically large profits in the first quarter of this year, despite all the noise surrounding the Affordable Care Act's individual marketplaces.
Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Humana and UnitedHealth Group — the big five for-profit insurers — cumulatively collected $4.5 billion in net earnings in the first three months of 2017. That was by far the biggest first-quarter haul for the group since the ACA exchanges went live in 2014. Other major insurers, such as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield company Health Care Service Corp., also are improving their ACA operations.
Something is very, very wrong with private insurance companies who profit from Health Care by Price Gouging. Health Care should be provided by the Federal government, just as is National Defense. Had the US a tried-and-true National HealthCare System, HC-providers would be obliged to accept government regulated prices for services rendered. And total costs would be far lower.
In the US, for example, a GP makes $200K a year (Bureau of Labor Statistics data from here). In Europe, the average GP does not even make half that amount ... and yet they have well-paying jobs.
Health Care in the US is a typical example of Price Gouging on behalf of both a Profession and Health Care Insurers. For a service as important as Health Care is to the nation, we should have the Federal Government providing it at affordable prices in hospitals it runs.
Which is how Health Care is done elsewhere in the world, and why those systems are rated better than ours in the US. See that sad fact underscored here: Country Rankings - National Health Care