Broke the rule and read the article. Knew it was the business model, but didn’t see what I had hoped for: A thrashing of our system of health insurance, the burdens imposed by persons not paying anything in this system (illegals for example), and the net effect of the current insurance scheme resulting in consumers paying for health insurance but unwilling/unable to use it due to the out of pocket cost. The latter impacting preventative care.
Competition drives efficiencies, innovation, service, and price as a differentiator. In healthcare it doesn’t seem exist in this space. Instead it is insurance firms limiting care, adding bureaucratic delays, and complexity in obtaining care. What they have managed to do is continually increase premiums, copays, deductibles with no end in sight.
Where is interstate competition? Where is competitive pricing? Where is oversight of this shXX-show? Where is the rationalization of the combined insurance and care costs to middle class families? Where are the Republicans when a non-socialist solution is required here?
Hell, if the GOP wants to win a few upcoming election cycles - work with private industries to rethink, reimagine, reboot, and retire our current system.
I’m fortunate to have really great healthcare and my family has been taken care of by amazing Doctors. No gripe there. But don’t look me in the eye and try to explain why a single small tablet of ibuprofen is $30. Don’t tell me that removing a fish hook from a finger (10 minutes and a bandaid) can cost $1,800. Don’t tell me that in an emergency situation that going to the nearest healthcare facility immediately is somehow a bad idea (instead of pulling over the truck, grabbing my phone, researching policy coverage online, or maybe calling an 800 number, dialing 2 for English, having an automated system not understand me, and and waiting on hold forever for someone ostensibly in Estados Unidos but with an accent from New Delhi asks for my policy number)
It’s a clusterF and far too many people are getting wealthy of the scheme while others suffer. Shameful that this keeps getting swept under the rug.
Made worse by government meddling in insurance markets, and no market feedback to health providers.
A few years ago I was surprised to learn that many local non profit hospitals that claimed they were losing too much money on charity cases spent more money on the interest payments on loans they took out to build new facilities. That is a new definition of "charitable" enterprise.