Are insurance companies really to blame for high medical costs?

Bluegrass Pundit ^ | Saturday, August 22, 2009 | Bluegrass Pundit

[Askwhy5times]

Democrats like to blame the health insurance industry for the high cost of health care. According to Nancy Pelosi,

"They are the villains in this," Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. She labeled industry practices as "immoral."

The truth is insurers are actually holding down costs. Most insurance companies send a statement to clients after they use health care services. Check your statement and you will see the insurance company is getting a 40% to 50% discount for services. A PricewaterhouseCoopers study of 2008 costs indicates 87% of insurance premiums go to pay for health care services. Only 3% are insurance company profits.

[Askwhy5times]

Contrary to what Obama and Democrats claim, insurers help control health care costs. It makes business sense.

[nmh]

No, it's frivolous lawsuits that drive up costs. This is why the American Bar Association supports Obama.

[Askwhy5times]

There are 41 million reasons Obama doesn’t support tort reform http://www.bluegrasspundit.com/2009/08/tort-refrorm-would-save-money-without.html

[Ev Reeman]

Like any business concern in America, insurance companies are run to maintain a certain profitability.

The only entity that does not have to show any responsibility, accountability or profitability is the government - and these days they are sure proving that - by wasting billions of taxpayer money - especially under the Obummer administration.

[FlingWingFlyer]

"They are the villains in this," Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters.

No Nancy, YOU are the villain in this. Don't try to Alinsky someone else. YOU are the villain.

[Pearls Before Swine]

While insurane companies aren't the main villains (Congress and lawyers take that prize), this statement bothers me:

Check your statement and you will see the insurance company is getting a 40% to 50% discount for services.

No, that is the REAL price, because it is what's usually paid. The fact that a momentarily uninsured person who has some cash can be raped for two and three times the actual price is more properly viewed as government santioned predatory behavior. The uninsured person with some cash doesn't pay the club price, which is paid by something like 95% of the patients (the 90% who are insured and the 5% who are uninsured but don't pay anything at all). This type of price discrimination should be illegal.

Let me restate my premise: The "real price" is the price paid by the majority of the clients. When payment through insurers (government or private) was a smaller part of the market, their price was a discount. Now that they essentially ARE the market, anything over their price is a premium, not "normal."

[edcoil]

Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. She labeled industry practices as “immoral.”

Immoral - this is the definition of government.

Our government feeding nuclear waste to people in oak ridge for testing, agent orange to Americans for testing, feeding human feces to retarded children for hepatitis research passing law after law against Americans.

She glorifies immoral.

[gwilhelm56]

**No Nancy, YOU are the villain in this. **

MOst businesses that CHARGE TOO MUCH, usually do it for one reason, NANCY.. to cover the COSTS FORCED UPON IT BY GOVERNMENT EDICT!!!

NANCY, Go take an Intro to business course.. NEVERMIND... the one I TOOK was nothing but an infomercial for the SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION.. Gotta get them at the beginning.

took that course after running a very small business... I walked out during the 3rd week.. when I said..”IF I followed the advice in this class .. my business would be bankrupt in 6 months.

[A_Former_Democrat]

NO . . . people who are too lazy to take care of themselves and their children . . .disproportionately Democratic constituencies

[PGR88]

I grew tired of the Dems Hugo-Chavez tactics a long time ago. Just one year ago, it was the rapacious oil companies, then came of course, the evil Wall St. villains, and now, it is naturally, the insurance companies.

Don’t people see through this??? Apparantly not enough of them.

[cranked]

No healthcare bills without tort reform, period.

[traderrob6]

Related...

http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-care-common-sense.html

[SAJ]

Could we just settle for a tort reform bill w/o health ‘care’?

[cranked]

Indeed.

[Let's Roll]

They may help control costs but the problem is that nearly all healthcare is insured when only catastrophic health problems should be.

If your car insurance covered every oil change, the cost of changing oil would be astronomic. When individuals pay for something, they make sure the cost is controlled - when they perceive their insurance company as paying for it, they really don’t care what the cost is.

That has been the mindset until the last 5 years or so when everyone is finally noticing how high that mindset has driven the cost of healthcare. Health insurance is expensive because healthcare IS expensive.

American consumers let that happen because it really wasn’t that painful until relatively recently.

[oldenuff2no]

This is a mess. The actual cost of health care is somewhere in the equation that is used to average out all payments to arrive at a point where hospitals and insurance companies can make enough profit to keep the doors open.
Illegals who use the emergency rooms as a primary care provider usually pay absolutely nothing for their care. The emergency rooms are not reimbursed for any of these services. Those costs are passed on to other users for that hospital. Insurance companies are nothing more than bookies running a huge numbers game. They have to keep enough winnings, profits, to pay their people and make a profit. Make no mistake that the insurance companies are watching the numbers all the time trying to eliminate all those who put them at a higher financial risk. Like I said it is nothing more than a legal sophisticated numbers game.
Then we have the vultures of the mix, trial lawyers. They generate no medical service. They have never healed or treated a patient. Their efforts have never lowered the cost of health care, but have increased the cost of every medical procedures offered in this country. They have caused a massive amount of outrageously priced defensive medicine to be accomplished every day, every week, every month, and every year. Defensive medicine are all those tests that are ordered and all those extra medicines to be proscribed, and all those extra followup visits that the docs must do to cover their butts from frivolous litigation. The doctors, hospitals, and patients are mere pawns in this huge scam. The government needs to place some controls on the trial lawyers and on the insurance companies. Any prospect of government control or administrating health programs is guaranteed to fail in complete bankruptcy. Our government has a firm and long history of total failure with running health care. You would have to be an uneducated illiterate idiot to want the government anywhere near the controls of any health care program. Socialism started in Germany on the shirt tails of socialized medicine. Hitler, an elected official, transformed socialized medicine into a total and complete socialist state. History should be studied and remembered. Socialized medicine is a very dangerous step down the road to losing all of the hard won freedoms we enjoy in this country. Don't let the left wing socialists sell you a bill of goods or lead you by the nose into the socialist state they are trying to engineer. Let me make somethings totally clear. I do not feel obligated to provide medical coverage for anyone who is in this country illegally. I do not believe that under our constitution that medical coverage and treatment is an absolute right. There is nothing about socialism that I do not despise. I do believe that the biggest threat to the United States Of America is socialism that is spread from within our own borders. If given the choice between Socialism or Civil War in the US, I would chose Civil War. Many have fought and died for our freedoms. This is an ongoing fight. If we relax we end up gazing at a president who looks more like Hitler every day. We end up with a congress who openly admits that they will vote contrary to the will of the people. Read your history people. This country is on the road to socialism and it is not an accident. It is a planned progression by the liberal left and proudly led by our current president.