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Lack of Competition in Health Care

KevinKohler said:
It was deemed constitutional as a TAX.
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Probably because the DNC had some kind of dirt of Chief Justice John Roberts. According to fellow Justices, he was a no on Obamacare until one late in the run up to the vote, he suddenly became a yes. He was the one that changed the penalty to a tax.
 
ObamacareFail said:
Actually the same thing would happen if we went all Medicare. It would still be what it is now.....so limited that to make it work well for anything but the common cold, you would have to buy a supplemental plan offered by private insurance. That would keep going up and up and up to make up for what Medicare does not cover. And Medicare premium for those under 65 will keep going up as well to prevent the system from imploding with all that added burden. I will be eligible for Medicare in late 2018. I will probably sign up for the absolute minimum and will certainly not use it as my primary healthcare coverage. It is inferior to VA Healthcare.
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If you’re getting VA free, why wouldn’t you think it’s superior to pay as you go? Everyone would. I’m very familiar with VA doctor visits, in-hospital surgery and treatment. It seems quite adequate. But me personally? I want to choose my doctors. And remember, your VA healthcare is not always readily available depending on where you travel. And an ambulance ride costs a few grand. They take you to the nearest hospital. Don’t even know if you were a mile away whether or not your local ambulance service would take you there. Just something to consider...
 
blackjack50 said:
Well. We know why that is...$$$. Me and you can’t pay off our senators like the insurance companies can. And they do. And the funny thing is? I think they don’t realize it. They run the risk of getting chopped by socialized medicine that will run them out of business by simply making them irrelevant. That is always a risk.
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no.. the insurance companies want socialized medicine. that's what these whackadoo liberals don't get. Socialized medicine plays right into the hands of the insurance companies.

You know who manages our socialized programs like Medicaid and medicare now? why its PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES. who get a nice big fat fee for it. in fact.. managing medicare and Medicaid for many insurance companies is their biggest profit center.

So.. what will happen is that the poor and lower middle class will have socialized medicine.. which the private insurance companies manage for a nice fat profit. and all the problems with this management will be pretty much the same..

then, private insurance companies will offer private plans to the middle class and the upper middle class to pay for those things that the government plans don't cover.. again.. at a nice fat profit.

The wealthy will have private insurance plans completely.

Insurance companies are pushing us slowly to socialized medicine. Obamacare probably pushed them back away from that for a bit.. but we are now heading more and more toward it as the exchanges die.. etc.
 
holbritter said:
Then why did so many bail out of it and leave sometimes just one provider in an area? This happened before the Republicans were in charge.
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The bailing out generally didn;t happen until the republicans became in charge.

However, in some cases there were issues with the state exchanges because there was already an insurance company that had a huge marketshare. Companies tried to get into the market.. but the huge insurance company was able to lower their rates to a point wher e companies with less marketshare could not compete. Partly because when you are the majority insurance company.. you have a lot more bargaining power with providers and can force lower rates.
 
blackjack50 said:
When I hear the debate about healthcare...one thing pesters me about the “right wing” idea behind opposing socialized medicine. It seems like there is a mentality to protect the insurance companies...but ultimately it seems to me they have lobbied and bought their way into a limited competition market. This is not an endorsement of social medicine, but rather a ponderence into if we have enough options. And is there any real effort to increase the number of insurance agencies? Like opening across state lines? That kind of thing. It seems to me the basic capitalist principle is being violated by insurance companies and that they do not have enough competition.

So. Does that seem correct? Should we push laws and regulations to force completion in an effort to reduce the cost of healthcare on the private citizen?
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There seems to be a general misconception about how insurance companies determine the cost of health care. The cost is based on each individual State's economic growth. Even within a State the cost fluctuates depending on the economic state of the particular area within the State. Poorer States have lower health care costs while State's with a more robust economy pay higher costs. The cost of insurance is not going to drastically change by allowing Insurance companies to offer insurance across State lines. The richer States will continue to pay higher health care premiums to offset the poorer States. Insurance companies are already spreading the cost of healthcare across State lines so that they are still raking in profits. There may be some minor changes in costs but I don't think it will be enough to make a difference. It's a shell game, imo.
 
MaggieD said:
If you’re getting VA free, why wouldn’t you think it’s superior to pay as you go? Everyone would. I’m very familiar with VA doctor visits, in-hospital surgery and treatment. It seems quite adequate. But me personally? I want to choose my doctors. And remember, your VA healthcare is not always readily available depending on where you travel. And an ambulance ride costs a few grand. They take you to the nearest hospital. Don’t even know if you were a mile away whether or not your local ambulance service would take you there. Just something to consider...
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If an ambulance is called, it's an emergency and there are provisions for the VA to cover it as well as a private hospital. But you are right, I cannot choose my own doctors. But then I am paying no premiums or deductibles. The basic minimum Medicare will cover me for way the hell out of town where there may not be a VA clinic or hospital.
 
ObamacareFail said:
If an ambulance is called, it's an emergency and there are provisions for the VA to cover it as well as a private hospital. But you are right, I cannot choose my own doctors. But then I am paying no premiums or deductibles. The basic minimum Medicare will cover me for way the hell out of town where there may not be a VA clinic or hospital.
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That is excellent. I’m very happy for you. You earned it.
 
MaggieD said:
That is excellent. I’m very happy for you. You earned it.
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Thank you. I had not taken advantage of it all of these years, until Obamacare blew up my private health insurance plan. Since then, it has been my escape hatch.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Competition would require offering a different product/service - that became even less possible under PPACA.
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Yes "different" in that they would not cover you if you got sick or hospitalized. But they were cheap and people loved them as long as they did not need any coverage.
 
iguanaman said:
Yes "different" in that they would not cover you if you got sick or hospitalized. But they were cheap and people loved them as long as they did not need any coverage.
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You are pulling that out of your backside. Listening to you, one would think that health insurance coverage only started under Obamacare. Over all of my adult years, I have had 8 surgeries, two of which involved hospital stays. Those surgeries occurred between 1980 and 2009. One of the surgeries was serious. Strangely, health insurance covered every damn one of them minus the deductibles, which were very very small compared to Obamacare. Some day, you are going to have to work out that the problem with obamacare is that for millions of people who are not individually wealthy all of the forced additional coverage in obamacare rated policies is utterly useless if you have to spend $6000 to $12,000 out of pocket before any damn thing is covered.
 
ObamacareFail said:
You are pulling that out of your backside. Listening to you, one would think that health insurance coverage only started under Obamacare. Over all of my adult years, I have had 8 surgeries, two of which involved hospital stays. Those surgeries occurred between 1980 and 2009. One of the surgeries was serious. Strangely, health insurance covered every damn one of them minus the deductibles, which were very very small compared to Obamacare. Some day, you are going to have to work out that the problem with obamacare is that for millions of people who are not individually wealthy all of the forced additional coverage in obamacare rated policies is utterly useless if you have to spend $6000 to $12,000 out of pocket before any damn thing is covered.
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Before the ACA there were plenty of low cost "plans" sold that did not have catastrophic coverage and would not cover your surgeries. The GOP plans all have even higher deductibles and premiums would still increase faster than under the ACA. The ACA at least has maximum out of pocket amount that is determined by income level. That would be gone in any GOP plan too. Until we let the Govt. set prices we will continue to be gouged by high HC costs.
 
iguanaman said:
Before the ACA there were plenty of low cost "plans" sold that did not have catastrophic coverage and would not cover your surgeries.
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Which part of "Over all of my adult years, I have had 8 surgeries, two of which involved hospital stays. Those surgeries occurred between 1980 and 2009. One of the surgeries was serious. Strangely, health insurance covered every damn one of them minus the deductibles, which were very very small compared to Obamacare." did you not understand?

The GOP plans all have even higher deductibles and premiums would still increase faster than under the ACA. The ACA at least has maximum out of pocket amount that is determined by income level. That would be gone in any GOP plan too. Until we let the Govt. set prices we will continue to be gouged by high HC costs.
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It's a waste of time to talk about GOP plans until they get a bill passed. Then you can attempt to critique it. Obamacare is already a bonified failure. Doing nothing at all would have been better then passing obamacare. And any healthcare system where the insured is told by the government how much insurance, he or she must buy is just not going to work. The reason the premiums keep going up on obamacare....one, the providers do not give you that expanded and mandated coverage for free.....and two, obamacare gives the insurers a captive customer base. No incentive for competition.
 
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ObamacareFail said:
Which part of "Over all of my adult years, I have had 8 surgeries, two of which involved hospital stays. Those surgeries occurred between 1980 and 2009. One of the surgeries was serious. Strangely, health insurance covered every damn one of them minus the deductibles, which were very very small compared to Obamacare."?



It's a waste of time to talk about GOP plans until they get a bill passed. Then you can attempt to critique it. Obamacare is already a bonified failure. Doing nothing at all would have been better then passing obamacare.
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Tell that to the 20 million who got their HC coverage because of the ACA.
 
ObamacareFail said:
Which part of "Over all of my adult years, I have had 8 surgeries, two of which involved hospital stays. Those surgeries occurred between 1980 and 2009. One of the surgeries was serious. Strangely, health insurance covered every damn one of them minus the deductibles, which were very very small compared to Obamacare." did you not understand?



It's a waste of time to talk about GOP plans until they get a bill passed. Then you can attempt to critique it. Obamacare is already a bonified failure. Doing nothing at all would have been better then passing obamacare. And any healthcare system where the insured is told by the government how much insurance, he or she must buy is just not going to work. The reason the premiums keep going up on obamacare....one, the providers do not give you that expanded and mandated coverage for free.....and two, obamacare gives the insurers a captive customer base. No incentive for competition.
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The waste of time is you using your own special circumstance to deny the facts. For everyone that was covered like you were there are 10 that went bankrupt when their claims were refused.
 
iguanaman said:
The waste of time is you using your own special circumstance to deny the facts. For everyone that was covered like you were there are 10 that went bankrupt when their claims were refused.
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Actually that's not true. You are making that one up completely. In fact.. most studies show that the reason for medical bankruptcies is NOT the medical debt that's incurred.. medical debt comprises a small portion of the debt.. its other debt..and more likely the income loss that comes with being sick, that pushes one toward medical bankruptcy.
 
iguanaman said:
Tell that to the 20 million who got their HC coverage because of the ACA.
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Which part of "Millions cannot afford to take adavantage of those healthcare policies because of the high premiums and deductibles." did you not understand? You are not only attempting to apply lipstick to a pig, you seeming are failing to accept the fact that Obamacare has pretty much devastated your party in a time span of just six years. Your party's continued attempts at defending that piece of **** legislation is making all of you look like "Bagdad Bob".
 
iguanaman said:
The waste of time is you using your own special circumstance to deny the facts. For everyone that was covered like you were there are 10 that went bankrupt when their claims were refused.
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You are pulling that out of your hat. I personally know of nobody in my adult life whose claims were ever turned down by their private health insurance providers. However I do know of a recent case where a work colleague on Medicare went for cataract surgery. Medicare covered the cataract surgey, however it refused to cover the resulting complications.
 
jaeger19 said:
Actually that's not true. You are making that one up completely. In fact.. most studies show that the reason for medical bankruptcies is NOT the medical debt that's incurred.. medical debt comprises a small portion of the debt.. its other debt..and more likely the income loss that comes with being sick, that pushes one toward medical bankruptcy.
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You are exactly right on that. Hospitals and doctors are always willing to work something out and would rather settle for something rather then absolutely nothing. It's the loss of employment income that leads to bankrupcy.
 
iguanaman said:
The waste of time is you using your own special circumstance to deny the facts. For everyone that was covered like you were there are 10 that went bankrupt when their claims were refused.
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If you buy lousy insurance, you get stuffed. But that is your fault.
 
iguanaman said:
Tell that to the 20 million who got their HC coverage because of the ACA.
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Who are those 20 millions? Why weren't they insured, in medicare or medicaid?
 
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