Your information is interesting, but I don’t see a solution.
HMOs are businesses and are supposed to make a profit for their shareholders. Charities are not businesses and are under no obligation to help HMOs to keep their profits high. Private physicians also need a reasonable expectation of a decent return on their years of investment in education and low paid training or they either won’t enter the profession or will leave early.
I see attitudinizing on all sides of this debate. I don’t see many potentially useful solutions coming from conservatives. Without that, guess what will happen?
My one and only fixed position is that, because of the bioterror potential, air/water/food borne infectious illnesses need to be covered in the defense budget and not skimped on.
In my opinion, the solution lies in HMOs honoring their contractual and legal obligations.
HMOs purportedly adjust their rates upward to the point where they can provide for the medical expenses of their customers and generate a fair profit for their owners. Their rates are supposedly kept in balance by their competition - other HMOs and other managed care enterprises.
The problems presented in the article and elsewhere are caused when HMOs cheat by dumping patients and otherwise take their customers' money without providing services. The means of solving to these problems is to stop the fraud and deception.