I don't think we can continue with the present system or lack thereof. Although I am in favor of capitalism and free enterprise in general, I wonder if a profit-making industry should be in charge of our health care. Their profit necessarily comes out of our care.
The Dems have tried to please everybody but have ended up with a confusing and I think unworkable pastiche. Besides, they are amoral and will use age or pre-born-ness to determine whether someone gets care, or life--an essentially unethical foundation. We can't leave things the way they are. Health care has gotten expensive enough to bankrupt people, and the insurance as constructed by the insurance industry is not working. They are in business to deny as much health care as possible.
I think the ideas of simplify and make totally ethical are a winning combination for Republicans.
Good for you. I wish more Freepers would do that.
I don't think we can continue with the present system or lack thereof.
I agree.
Although I am in favor of capitalism and free enterprise in general, I wonder if a profit-making industry should be in charge of our health care. Their profit necessarily comes out of our care.
Sorry, but that's nonsense.
Profit isn't the problem. In fact, profit can be part of the solution. If the industry is structured properly, profits create the incentive to deliver a better product or service.
The trouble with our system isn't profit per say, but with the incentives and the rules of the game that the government has set up.
Health care has gotten expensive enough to bankrupt people,
That's because people generally don't pay for their care. Someone else pays, which gives individals little to no incentive to shop around for the best deal. That, in turn, gives health care providers no incentive to innovate and find ways to deliver a better product at a lower cost.
The best evidence that this is a key to the problem is in the market for medical services that are generally not covered by health insurance. Take Lasic vision correction. The procedure has gotten less expensive over time. Same thing for cosmetic surgery. I could go on and on.
the insurance as constructed by the insurance industry is not working.
Yes, the other problem is that the employer-provided health "insurance" that most people have isn't insurance.
Insurance, properly so-called, is protection against unlikely but large, potentially ruinous financial risks that are difficult or impossible for an individual to plan for. It makes no sense to buy insurance against manageable or predictable expenses.
Yet most employer-based "insurance" policies cover small and predictable expenses. At the same time, they fail to protect you against the possibility that you might develop a medical condition that will cause you to have financially rouinous medical bills in future years. Most policies will only guarantee to cover medical costs in the current year or so long as you stay with the same employer.
Why do we have such a screwed up insurance system? It's not because of profits. Rather, it's because of the way our tax code is set up, which gives preferential treatment to employment-based "insurance" and penalizes people for buying real insurance on the individual market.
Also, many states have put in place insurance regulations that have made it either illegal or prohibitively expensive for insurance companies to offer catastrophic policies on the individual market, so consumers can't buy them.
The solution isn't to try to prevent insurance companies from making profits (which aren't that high to begin with), nor is it to have the government take over.
The solution is to change the tax code and insurance regulations so that we discourage misnamed employer-based "insurance" and instead encourage insurance companies to offer and people to buy true insurance on the individual market.
By "true insurance," I mean a policy that only covers the big, expensive things, and that offers protection against premium increases should you develop an expensive medical condition in the future.
The idea is to get people to buy into policies like this when they're young and healthy, so that should they get sick when they get older, they're protected. For people who were born with an expensive condition or developed one very early in life, we can create a subsidized high risk pool.
Ture health insurance policies like the one described above are actually available in some states. Unfortunately, Obamacare will make them illegal.