I wonder how many years ago they actually cured diabetes?
Color me skeptical of these claims.
Looks like an issue for Trump to handle.
I’d love to see him yank to rug out from under these insurance companies.
Remember when they kissed our butts to get on board with them?
They loved us being loyal customers? They actually gave discounts if you stayed with them.
The article doesn’t assess the policy issue.
The Helth Maintenance Act of 1973 made capitation legal. Previously, it was illegal for a health care provider to accept payment for not performing treatment. But that is precisely what capitation is, and it was enacted as part of the HMO Act as a cost-saving measure.
Further, HMOs were conceived as a stepping stone to a full government takeover of the health care sector. In the Kaiser Permanente health system, doctors are employees of Kaiser, hospitals and clinics are fully owned by Kaiser, etc. In a sense, HMOs are a state (not government) collectivization of health care.
Fortunately, patients rebelled against capitation because it imposed de facto constraints on access to care. So the private insurers replaced hard caps with soft caps, as have the state Medicaid systems. But capitation is still legal.
Teddy Kennedy’s finger prints were all over the HMO Act.
OK, they guy’s a total idiot. Or he’s deliberately lying. “and even doctors, could begin functioning as for-profit business entities”. I can’t believe he’s so stupid that he doesn’t know doctors were trying to make money back in the 1960s.
Big medicine is corrupt, just like every giant entity. It’s why I don’t contribute to “cancer research.”
Nixon IS to blame.
When he made health care available to people as a job ‘benefit’ it was one step closer to a faceless benefit that, eventually, only the government could provide.
Before then people paid for their own medical bills. And churches and charities stepped in when things got really bad.
Then, the costs became hidden. When your ‘co-pay’ is all your see, it does not matter where you go. Why shop around? Its the same price everywhere.
Except it isn’t, and companies figured out they could charge as much as they could collude with the insurance companies to pay. With Government and FDA ‘approval’.
Invent a new drug that allows men to have more sex? I wonder if there would be a market for something like that...?
Why mass-produce it for pennies when you can get government to FORCE insurance companies to pay $95 a pill, as part of your ‘health care’
Get the government totally out of health care and the costs will go down. Get them totally involved and you will have The VA for all.
My understanding was that Senator Ted Kennedy introduced the bill. Don’t remember when and where I read that so take it with a grain of salt.
Since it would be unconstitutional to make doctors slaves, I wonder what law forcing all to NOT make a profit preceded the law in the article and when.
There’s a company called Lincare that supplies parts (masks, hoses, etc.) for my Bipap machine that I use for sleep apnea. They are criminals for the prices they charge the insurance companies - for example, $90 for a mask insert that Amazon sells for $30, plus their service is terrible and always late.
If you look at the curve for health care/insurance costs, the sharp incline begins in 1966 (Medicare/Medicaid). I am reading a book called “Death by Regulation” by Dr. Mary J. Ruwart, which claims that a change in FDA rules in the early ‘60s caused the huge spike in R&D and hence delays in the availability of new drugs, and increased prices of all drugs.
I can bear witness to the benefit of these advances. My parents today are able to walk due to hip implants, they continue to see well due to cataract surgery and lens implants, and they rely on statins and blood pressure drugs for their survival and reasonable good health even in their late 80s. Similarly, I survived a pituitary tumor due to the MRIs and CAT scans that detected it and the endoscopic instruments and surgery that removed it. None of these were available before the 1970s and Nixon's unleashing of the power of the profit motive in health care.
I thought The Swimmer was the big HMO advocate
Yup. Another mess you can lay squarely on Tricky Dick’s pointy head. It needs to be reversed.
Believe it or not, the HMO was a proud legislative accomplishment of none other than Teddy Kennedy.
Tricky Dick signed on to Democrat HMO legislation because he was mostly interested in foreign affairs and his own political future. Nixon didn’t much care about the Democrat’s domestic social agenda. Nixon also signed on to EPA, OSHA, Social Security expansion, Medicare expansion, etc., etc.
I would say just treat yourself.
That would fix everything, then you wouldn’t have to worry about greedy doctors gouging you needlessly so they can send their kids to Harvard.
Just do it yourself. You can control the quality and the price.
This article is full of more poop than a Christmas goose.
Healthcare was for-profit since the founding of this nation. Neither Nixon nor Kaiser had anything to do with it.