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Opinions on Obama health care initiatives (pg. 2)
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| Krypton |
| No one should be denied health insurance no matter their medical situation. |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by DOOMBOT
I think your belief is the sole reason why it is easy for the government to have people believe that it can't be competitively priced, like any other good and service. Explain how this specialist field existed and worked before the present day system. If we have gotten so far into our existance without it, what makes you think that it is absolutely necessary for our survival today? |
Compete competitively? Yea right. I went to a lung specialist a few months ago for a chronic cough. He identified the problem immediately, but then, wanted me to schedule a full body scan. I didn't need a full body scan, and this over-testing is rampant in the system. The more test they run, the more they can charge the insurance companies, the high the premiums. Is it no wonder why insurance premium inflation is so high?
Healthcare isn't a damn commodity to be bought and sold. It involves REAL people. It's not all about "the market" and supply and demand. FFS...lower the costs, and provide universal coverage. Is that too much to ask for? |
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| jerZ07002 |
| quote: | Originally posted by ********
Wow I just ran across this factoid and found it to be stageringly relevant and lend some potential credence to not only health care reform but the economic slide in part caused by the subprime mortgage crisis...
50 per cent of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in the U. S. in 2001 were due to medical bills, with an estimated two million Americans affected each year.
source:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/health...3845/story.html |
that's actually not surprising to me. unfortunate as it is, medical bills are insane. I had a 17K bill for an emergency room visit. thankfully, i'm fully insured under my employer's plan; so, i paid only 75 dollars of the 17K bill. not bad! |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by DOOMBOT
I think your belief is the sole reason why it is easy for the government to have people believe that it can't be competitively priced, like any other good and service. |
what "belief"? the facts speak for themselves. the US has the highest costing healthcare of any comparable country. that isn't a matter for debate, so how is that "competitive" environment keeping costs down presently?
some things just don't lend themselves well to to private enterprise.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front...ndamerica/view/
| quote: | Originally posted by DOOMBOT
Explain how this specialist field existed and worked before the present day system. |
i don't understand that question.
| quote: | Originally posted by DOOMBOT
If we have gotten so far into our existance without it, what makes you think that it is absolutely necessary for our survival today? |
again, im not quite sure what you're saying. there are many countries in the world with other systems that work far better than the one you have. what im curious about is why some americans think they simply can't do something as well as other nations. that's the last opinion i expect to hear from the yanks! |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
Compete competitively? Yea right. I went to a lung specialist a few months ago for a chronic cough. He identified the problem immediately, but then, wanted me to schedule a full body scan. I didn't need a full body scan, and this over-testing is rampant in the system. The more test they run, the more they can charge the insurance companies, the high the premiums. Is it no wonder why insurance premium inflation is so high?
Healthcare isn't a damn commodity to be bought and sold. It involves REAL people. It's not all about "the market" and supply and demand. FFS...lower the costs, and provide universal coverage. Is that too much to ask for? |
In theory, the market provides better incentives towards efficient behavior than does any kind of "universal coverage." However, these advantages are largely undermined by the widespread use of insurance, the moral hazard of which allows insured individuals to make inefficient choices regarding their own care at minimal cost to themselves. The market also fails with regard to those who are not insured (or at least the vast majority of them), since efficient market operation depends on all parties having enough resources to accurately express the extent to which they value the goods or services being exchanged.
Universal healthcare eliminates the latter problem by not requiring patients to pay for the services that they use, but for precisely that reason it exacerbates the former. Take that full body scan, for instance. Is it covered by universal healthcare? If so, then no one whose doctor proposes such a wasteful test has any incentive to decline it, since they will not have to pay for it. Moreover, while an insurance company has at least some incentive to refuse to cover the test (e.g., higher profits, keeping other clients' premiums down to compete in the insurance market), the employees of an administrative bureaucracy most likely have none at all.
Thus, the most probable result is that doctors, who have an incentive to recommend unnecessary tests (so that they can bill for them, and also to limit their potential liability), will do so at an even higher rate. Patients have no incentive to refuse the test, even those few who know it is not worth the expense have no incentive to refuse since they do not have to pay for the cost of the test anyway. Bureaucrats are unlikely to refuse the test , so it will be performed even though it produces benefits substantially less than its costs. And even if the administrative scheme were complex enough to empower bureaucrats to refuse to pay for treatments on a case-by-case basis, they would likely refuse almost as many necessary tests as unnecessary tests.
Worse yet, the individual is completely helpless to protect himself from this waste: refusing the test for himself does him no good, since he will still have to pay his proportionate share of the cost of all the other wasteful tests that other people accept.
The bottom line is this: yes, the current health care system is badly in need of reform. However, the issues are extremely complex, and simply providing tax-funded universal coverage is an extremely simplistic approach. It's a serious mistake to ignore the potential efficiency (and distributive) benefits of a market-based approach, but it is equally a mistake to overlook the reasons why the market has generally failed to produce efficient behavior among those who have access to health care and has excluded many people from adequate access entirely. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| arbiter, i think you're overlooking the fact that universal coverage systems are normally so strained that this keeps the unnecessary medical procedures to a minimum :p |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
In theory, the market provides better incentives towards efficient behavior than does any kind of "universal coverage." However, these advantages are largely undermined by the widespread use of insurance, the moral hazard of which allows insured individuals to make inefficient choices regarding their own care at minimal cost to themselves. The market also fails with regard to those who are not insured (or at least the vast majority of them), since efficient market operation depends on all parties having enough resources to accurately express the extent to which they value the goods or services being exchanged.
Universal healthcare eliminates the latter problem by not requiring patients to pay for the services that they use, but for precisely that reason it exacerbates the former. Take that full body scan, for instance. Is it covered by universal healthcare? If so, then no one whose doctor proposes such a wasteful test has any incentive to decline it, since they will not have to pay for it. Moreover, while an insurance company has at least some incentive to refuse to cover the test (e.g., higher profits, keeping other clients' premiums down to compete in the insurance market), the employees of an administrative bureaucracy most likely have none at all.
Thus, the most probable result is that doctors, who have an incentive to recommend unnecessary tests (so that they can bill for them, and also to limit their potential liability), will do so at an even higher rate. Patients have no incentive to refuse the test, even those few who know it is not worth the expense have no incentive to refuse since they do not have to pay for the cost of the test anyway. Bureaucrats are unlikely to refuse the test , so it will be performed even though it produces benefits substantially less than its costs. And even if the administrative scheme were complex enough to empower bureaucrats to refuse to pay for treatments on a case-by-case basis, they would likely refuse almost as many necessary tests as unnecessary tests.
Worse yet, the individual is completely helpless to protect himself from this waste: refusing the test for himself does him no good, since he will still have to pay his proportionate share of the cost of all the other wasteful tests that other people accept.
The bottom line is this: yes, the current health care system is badly in need of reform. However, the issues are extremely complex, and simply providing tax-funded universal coverage is an extremely simplistic approach. It's a serious mistake to ignore the potential efficiency (and distributive) benefits of a market-based approach, but it is equally a mistake to overlook the reasons why the market has generally failed to produce efficient behavior among those who have access to health care and has excluded many people from adequate access entirely. |
I'm not exactly for tax-payer funded universal coverage. I'm more for a heavily regulated health insurance industry where insurance companies are not allowed to make a profit and no one can be denied coverage. I liken companies which profit from relieving more than they give in health benefits to war profiteers. |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
arbiter, i think you're overlooking the fact that universal coverage systems are normally so strained that this keeps the unnecessary medical procedures to a minimum :p |
If only the strain was borne primarily by the unnecessary procedures. :( |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
Compete competitively? Yea right. I went to a lung specialist a few months ago for a chronic cough. He identified the problem immediately, but then, wanted me to schedule a full body scan. I didn't need a full body scan, and this over-testing is rampant in the system. The more test they run, the more they can charge the insurance companies, the high the premiums. Is it no wonder why insurance premium inflation is so high? |
2 words: tort reform.
Why do you think doctors peform so many extra tests? Because they have to, due to the industry being rampant with ambulance chasing lawyers just waiting for a misdiagnosis so they can get after a multi-million dollar lawsuit; the doctors almost HAVE to do it to protect themselves from bankruptcy. They aren't out scheming for ways to make more money, as Obama suggested those evil pediatricians do with removing tonsils. A limit on lawsuit amounts could vastly bring down healthcare costs.... malpractice insurance is also getting insanely high because of this, which ultimately raises the costs too.
Tort reform would help immensely... however it never will with Democrats in charge because the trial lawyers are the 2nd highest financial contributing group to their party. |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
2 words: tort reform.
Why do you think doctors peform so many extra tests? Because they have to, due to the industry being rampant with ambulance chasing lawyers just waiting for a misdiagnosis so they can get after a multi-million dollar lawsuit; the doctors almost HAVE to do it to protect themselves from bankruptcy. They aren't out scheming for ways to make more money, as Obama suggested those evil pediatricians do with removing tonsils. A limit on lawsuit amounts could vastly bring down healthcare costs.... malpractice insurance is also getting insanely high because of this, which ultimately raises the costs too.
Tort reform would help immensely... however it never will with Democrats in charge because the trial lawyers are the 2nd highest financial contributing group to their party. |
The point is, doctor's and hospitals don't compete. They have no incentive to lower prices, or provide value for treatment. |
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| jerZ07002 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
The point is, doctor's and hospitals don't compete. They have no incentive to lower prices, or provide value for treatment. |
yes they do. The problem is that operating expenses are so high there is no choice but to charge as much as they do (well, they could charge less but then doctors wouldn't be driving porsches, and there would be little incentive to going through 10 years of schooling if there wasn't a pretty big payday at the back end). Doctors are service providers like any other provider. They need to build a client base and they compete with other doctors for that business. Hospitals are quite the same. If they didn't compete they wouldn't need to advertise. |
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| jerZ07002 |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
2 words: tort reform.
Why do you think doctors peform so many extra tests? Because they have to, due to the industry being rampant with ambulance chasing lawyers just waiting for a misdiagnosis so they can get after a multi-million dollar lawsuit; the doctors almost HAVE to do it to protect themselves from bankruptcy. They aren't out scheming for ways to make more money, as Obama suggested those evil pediatricians do with removing tonsils. A limit on lawsuit amounts could vastly bring down healthcare costs.... malpractice insurance is also getting insanely high because of this, which ultimately raises the costs too.
Tort reform would help immensely... however it never will with Democrats in charge because the trial lawyers are the 2nd highest financial contributing group to their party. |
I definitely agree. The government needs to step in an provide a system that doctors can opt into so there liability is limited (except for egregious cases) in exchange for lower fees. This way, it cuts out the insurance and the lawyers. Two groups that shouldn't be as invovled in medical decisions. |
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