And yet, that's one of the arguments FOR government health care, that the government won't make cost cutting decisions like private insurance might. Those that really think that are deluding themselves.
With *free* healthcare, people are going to go for every little thing because they don't have to pay for it. As it is, there are plenty on welfare already who use the ER as their doctor's office and go there just because they have a sore throat or tooth ache in the middle of the night, instead of taking care of it during the day like other responsible, reasonable people (been there, seen that- for real)
I'm against government funded anything, but in the worst case scenario, if the government really felt that it had to help people without insurance, there are so many other better options than making a mandatory, restrictive, burdensome health care system like the one they're proposing.
FWIW, I've never had our insurance deny us coverage.
I’ve never had anything denied, save for some chiropractic therapies, but that’s what FlexSpending is for.
I think we need to investigate an alternative reform that has the government cover catastrophic care, let consumers foot the bill for preventative and checkups, and establish pre-tax HSA’s for everything in between. It’s an idea that getting some traction, but I don’t know whether it can be implemented in practicality. This would at least prevent people from getting unnecessary “free” services, encourage people to actually care about prevention, and it would return some responsibility to us as individuals to better our lives. Get rid of the insurance outfits and suddenly you have a healthcare system that is substantially driven by market forces (read: price competition), with exception of catastrophic care which the gov’t would have to cover.
Maybe it’s nutty. I don’t know if it’s the answer, but I think it’s at least worth exploring.