Article

2013-07-03 Economy

UnitedHealth to exit individual insurance market in California

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Posted by Fred 2013-07-03 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 They suspended the employer mandate on groups 50+.

That's what's important and i posted it.

This law is an abortion

Posted by Beavis 2013-07-03 00:09|| 2013-07-03 00:09|| Front Page Top

#2 Any regrets there Justice Roberts ?

Posted by Besoeker 2013-07-03 04:10|| 2013-07-03 04:10|| Front Page Top

#3 White House violates law with Obamacare delay.

Posted by Besoeker 2013-07-03 04:21|| 2013-07-03 04:21|| Front Page Top

#4 The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013, concludes Section 1513.

That is strange and unusual phrasing. Weasel-word sleight of hand. It does not say "shall take effect on January 1, 2014." Nor does it specify to *which* months after Dec. 31, 2013 the amendments shall apply. Perhaps the first and sixth months, or the seventeenth and all subsequent months. Or perhaps every other month, or only months falling within a leap year.

A creative lawyer might argue that the start date is clearly left to the discretion of the executive, with a good chance of winning. Seems to me this wiggle room was intentionally built in, because the drafters knew it would be impossible to implement it all on such a short timeline.

Posted by RandomJD 2013-07-03 05:18|| 2013-07-03 05:18|| Front Page Top

#5 I think someone in the Bumble admin has seen June's jobs numbers

Posted by Beavis 2013-07-03 08:02|| 2013-07-03 08:02|| Front Page Top

#6 So long, parasites. Here's hoping you go out of business in EVERY state, not just CA.

UnitedHealth = poster child for sh!tty corporate governance, corrupt practices and predatory pricing. They and their pals' greed and corruption are the biggest reason that insurance rates in CA have soared 170% over the last decade.

The ACA's going to stop this insanity, thank God.

CA's ACA exchanges are not only delivering affordable and high-quality plans - FINALLY - but it's about to get even better for us. There will be a ballot inititiative in 2014 that will finally rein in the for-profit health insurance mafia and subject them to normal insurance regulation of the kind that has kept auto and home insurance rates at a reasonable level in CA for a quarter century. Details here: http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76246802/

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 09:04|| 2013-07-03 09:04|| Front Page Top

#7 In his SEC settlement, the CEO of UnitedHealth, with the connivance of a corrupt board of directors packed with ex-politicians, admitted to stealing half a BILLION dollars ($468m to be exact). The company also settled with the AMA and with plan members to pay back $350m it ripped off from them by overbilling. Separately UnitedHealth was convicted of ripping off providers in NY state. The SEC is continuing to investigate the company, its board and disgraced former CEO Bill McGuire for other securities law violations.

And the cherry on the cake: CEO McGuire was given by his corrupt board a golden parachute equaling -get this - $1.1 BILLION. Yes, that's billion with a B.

This is the picture of the sick, rotten, ridiculously wasteful for-profit health insurance "system" (racket is more like it) that the ACA will finally, thank God, do away with. Good riddance.

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 09:25|| 2013-07-03 09:25|| Front Page Top

#8 Lex,

If you think for profit is a racket wait till you see the extortion funded sector.

It's a killer here.

You need more competition, not more customer compulsion!

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2013-07-03 09:45|| 2013-07-03 09:45|| Front Page Top

#9 BP: you've got it exactly backwards.

Again, the for-profit health insurance racket has tripled our rates since 2000.

Meanwhile, effective insurance regulation in other areas has kept auto and property insurance rates at reasonable, affordable levels - for EVERYONE in California, not just a privileged few who have access to heavily-subsidized golden plans.

The solution is simple, obvious and well-established in every other major industrialized democracy: eliminate for-profit health insurance.

Private insurance options are fine - so long as they're non-profit entities that are tightly regulated to eliminate the possibility of colossal, multiple-billion dollar sinkholes of corruption like UnitedHealth.

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 09:58|| 2013-07-03 09:58|| Front Page Top

#10 No matter how much money you spend, you can not buy immortality. It's a lot easier to burn through the resources of other people than your own.

Posted by Procopius2k 2013-07-03 10:03|| 2013-07-03 10:03|| Front Page Top

#11 Is someone having a sale on Kool-Aid?

Posted by SteveS 2013-07-03 10:05|| 2013-07-03 10:05|| Front Page Top

#12 Steve - do you work for UnitedHealth? Why on earth would any patient or doctor defend these vultures?

UH's reasons for bashing healthcare reform are obvious.

But the opposition of so many ordinary Americans to the move away from our absurdly wasteful, ruinously expensive and casually cruel botch job of a non-system can only be explained by Americans' ignorance of other systems.

Clue: they all tightly restrict or eliminate altogether the PROFIT element in private insurance plans.

This is what UnitedHealth and the other predatory for-profit insurers cannot accept. Why anyone would cheer them on is beyond reason.

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 10:14|| 2013-07-03 10:14|| Front Page Top

#13 So, Lex, taxpayer subsidized health insurance is better somehow? What happens when there a're not enough taxpayers?

Posted by Deacon Blues 2013-07-03 10:20|| 2013-07-03 10:20|| Front Page Top

#14 Net or Gross? I mean, do they at least break even, or who will replace them will balance right there on that knife edge? I bow to the expert which will also explain why such cannibals had not been properly dealt with state-wise already, and then why is your failure to deal with such a easily solved problem now suddenly a multi-billion federal problem. Need help from Kansas, sound like kinda a loser.

Posted by swksvolFF 2013-07-03 10:29|| 2013-07-03 10:29|| Front Page Top

#15 And the cherry on the cake: CEO McGuire was given by his corrupt board a golden parachute equaling -get this - $1.1 BILLION. Yes, that's billion with a B.

Smell the envy.

And it's the worst, most fecal smelling envy of them all - that envy which pretends to be "concern for social justice" or "fairness" when it's just garden-variety envy.

Ugh. Pass the gas mask.

Posted by no mo uro 2013-07-03 10:36|| 2013-07-03 10:36|| Front Page Top

#16 Um, Deacon? You do realize that our current kloodge of a non-system is heavily "taxpayer-supported", don't you?

Here's Republican healthcare analyst Avik Roy on our *existing* taxpayer-supported system:

"Take healthcare... most Republican voters have high-quality health insurance, coverage that is heavily subsidized by the government through the tax code (employer-sponsored insurance, $300 billion a year) or the Social Security Act (Medicare, $700 billion a year). "

Yup. Get the gum'mint outta my Medicare!

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 10:36|| 2013-07-03 10:36|| Front Page Top

#17 Mo - why would anyone envy a convicted criminal? McGuire's been barred from the industry. He was forced to disgorge his gains. Are you on drugs, mo?

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 10:39|| 2013-07-03 10:39|| Front Page Top

#18 Lex must be on drugs if he thinks the extortion funded sector can even do care.

For profit insurance is a must here if you actually want care.

If you want treatment you should pay for it and the best person to pay for it is the person who's ill.

It's a simple as this... The NHS is a killer.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2013-07-03 10:56|| 2013-07-03 10:56|| Front Page Top

#19 Lex makes Murat appear down right reasonable

Posted by Rex Mundi 2013-07-03 11:01|| 2013-07-03 11:01|| Front Page Top

#20 You guys are so deluded you think that your existing coverage is not heavily - to the tune of a trillion dollars each year - subsidized by the feds.

Even when UnitedHealth is picking your pocket and cratering this nation's finances, you stand up for them. A perfect definition of "serf."

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 11:04|| 2013-07-03 11:04|| Front Page Top

#21 The alternative is much worse. Trust me the NHS kills.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2013-07-03 11:05|| 2013-07-03 11:05|| Front Page Top

#22 In order to eliminate cartels you need Competition.
Competition needs profits to attract innovative new entrants.
If you want a producer-captured, expensive and shoddy system of treatment rationing where you're a cost to the system and therefore minimised then go the other way.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2013-07-03 11:07|| 2013-07-03 11:07|| Front Page Top

#23 About that famous Marat painting, the note he holds says something like, "I'm a loser, so I should take care of you."

In reality, the letter he was writing was an enemies/execution list.

Posted by swksvolFF 2013-07-03 11:22|| 2013-07-03 11:22|| Front Page Top

#24 Making people work for no money...sounding familiar.

Posted by swksvolFF 2013-07-03 11:24|| 2013-07-03 11:24|| Front Page Top

#25 The irony is that the government regulations and taxation policies provided most of the impetus for the current system.

Back in the day when marginal tax rates were pushing 90% for individuals employers had no way to pay for performance so they added "benefits" in lieu of $. The government allowed the gaming of the tax system by making employer paid health-insurance non-taxable for the employee.

Hey presto, the birth of employer paid health care and the demise of actually paying your doctor and shopping as an invested consumer. The downward spiral has been going for more than 60 years.

Now you can't buy the amount of healthcare that you think you want and spend your own money on it.

People like Lex and so many others don't understand the difference between capitalism and crony capitalism, aka corporatism, aka fascism.

Posted by AlanC 2013-07-03 11:25|| 2013-07-03 11:25|| Front Page Top

#26 Stasi

The Stasi infiltrated almost every aspect of GDR life. In the mid-1980s, a network of IMs began growing in both German states; by the time East Germany collapsed in 1989, the Stasi employed 91,015 employees and 173,081 informants. About one of every 63 East Germans collaborated with the Stasi. By at least one estimate, the Stasi maintained greater surveillance over its own people than any secret police force in history. The Stasi employed one full-time agent for every 166 East Germans. The ratios swelled when informers were factored in: counting part-time informers, the Stasi had one informer per 6.5 people. By comparison, the Gestapo employed one secret policeman per 2,000 people. This comparison led Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal to call the Stasi even more oppressive than the Gestapo. Additionally, Stasi agents infiltrated and undermined West Germany's government and spy agencies.

The Stasi motto was "Schild und Schwert der Partei" (Shield and Sword of the Party), that is the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Several Stasi officials were prosecuted for their crimes after 1990.

(wikipedia)

Posted by Hupuque Bucket2093 2013-07-03 11:28|| 2013-07-03 11:28|| Front Page Top

#27 AlanC people like Lex also think that more government is the answer to the problems government created.

Posted by Beavis 2013-07-03 11:29|| 2013-07-03 11:29|| Front Page Top

#28 Close, Alan C. but no cigar. The genesis of the tax deductibility of health insurance was ruling by the War Labor Board during WWII that such expenses were not subject to wage and price controls. It became a way to give people raises that were otherwise forbidden. Thank FDR. Again.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2013-07-03 11:47|| 2013-07-03 11:47|| Front Page Top

#29 More shilling for the for-profit health insurance mafia.

Our current system is a Frankenstein kloodged from at least five different elements - gov't-run a la the NHS (the VA system), gov't-paid directly via the SS Act (Medicare), giv't-subsidized via the tax code, directly paid by individuals, and indirectly paid by everyone (the cost of caring for 40m uninsured).

Only the fourth element has anything in common with your fantasy of insurance without government intervention - and there too, we see massive indirect intervention to set rate limits.

Healthcare in the 21st century cannot be delivered effectively or efficiently without massive government intervention. Healthcare is not a normal good. There's never going to be real price transparency and price elasticity to the consumer for most procedures (imagine shopping around for a specialist to treat your heart attack).

There will ALWAYS be heavy state intervention to regulate pricing, care, delivery of all sorts.

The only question is whether those regulations and interventions will result in the best coverage at lowest cost to the citizenry - the ENTIRE citizenry, not just those lucky enough to have access to the trillion dollars in annual subsidies that underwrite care for those on Medicare or private employer plans.

The European systems have fiund a way to balance puic and private olans so as to provide BETTER overall outcomes at FAR LOWER COST than our Franken-kloodge system dies. In France, Germany, Seutzerland, Sweden etc, people supplement their govt-provided insurance with private insurance plans paid out of their own pockets. Here's the deal: all of those countries force the private insurers to be NON-PROFIT COMPANIES.

That's the missing element here, and the cause of most of our system's absurd amount of waste and corruption, as well as its unforgivable cruelties.

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 12:13|| 2013-07-03 12:13|| Front Page Top

#30 The European systems have fiund a way to balance puic and private olans so as to provide BETTER overall outcomes at FAR LOWER COST than our Franken-kloodge system dies.

Right there I can tell you that you are full of shit.
1,200 starved to death in England alone because the nurses were "too busy" to feed them. Canadians come to the US because their waiting times for care are too long and they can't wait.

No... the European model is filled with inefficiencies, waste, corruption and is a far.. far.. FAR cry from offering better care at a lower cost.

As for our sad insurance state. We haven't had real competition in the free market with health insurance for DECADES. Government involvement and regulations have driven up private cost and combined with price fixing by said government, red tape and just outright corruption have made health insurance pretty much unaffordable for most people that don't get it through their work.

We have tried government involvement for a fix. It only made things worse for everyone and clinging to the idiotic and childish belief that the government can fix everything is not helpful for anyone.

Posted by DarthVader 2013-07-03 13:08|| 2013-07-03 13:08|| Front Page Top

#31 Wanna bet old Lex wheels out the horribly flawed 2001 WHO report?

Posted by Beavis 2013-07-03 13:12|| 2013-07-03 13:12|| Front Page Top

#32 Lex seems to think that non-profit insurers would be a solution. Non-profits are notorious offenders when it comes to over-compensation of their executives and staff.

What's needed is competition and the ability to buy out-of-state plans. What's needed is to enforce our criminal codes. What's needed is to add industry regulation forcing publication of each organization's pricing, with no discounts or kickbacks. And suitable regulation and pools to handle pre-existing conditions.

What's not needed is a government takeover of the payment process, with further corruption and inefficiency. What's not needed is further insulation of the providers from market forces.

Once the government takes over, we have another situation where the provider can't regulate itself. And it's very hard to rescind the arrangement, as we see with OCare.

Posted by KBK 2013-07-03 13:29|| 2013-07-03 13:29|| Front Page Top

#33 Wait, that's a question, more government and more red tape will create better value? Next we will have to wonder whether turning the batteries around in a flashlight will such darkness out of the room.

I have a paper sitting right fn' here from my insurance provider - a provider which has been sending out obamacare is super! letters for the last three rate increases. It says, due to the increases in rates, I have been grandfathered into my previously agreed rates, but if I change my policy in any way, I get the new ramrod prices, so sorry about that.

And I'm out here where Sebilius got things fixed, see. The head of your single party multiple storefront self regulating ideal tried to boodle $30million on the way out of my great State. I am quite happy with my current State government, but also know that is subject to elections.

So what you are suggesting, is that right now all the right people are in place. To ensure that, those positions must be froze. That includes those in government; is that what you are suggesting?

Posted by swksvolFF 2013-07-03 13:39|| 2013-07-03 13:39|| Front Page Top

#34 why would anyone envy a convicted criminal?

You really are adept at deflection, aren't you, Lex? The truth is that it is the wealth and not any crime that bothers you.

But then, you're just way smarter and more well informed and more moral and ethical than us subhumans, aren't you?

I'm sure you comfort yourself with the thought that some day soon the government will belong entirely to people who think exactly as you do, and then you can cleanse away those subhumans on the center right once and for all, and get yourYear-Zero paradise for the rest of eternity.

Remember the words of St. Alinsky, mocking and disenfranchising us, and dehumanizing us, those are the first steps.....

Posted by no mo uro 2013-07-03 13:41|| 2013-07-03 13:41|| Front Page Top

#35 It is the worst kind of creationism, like dwarves will spring from the rocks and diligently work the books for free.

Sebilius was so busy tanking that the former governor did not fill the responsibility to submit a budget, and when it came time to pay she tried to use other accounts by circumventing the Kansas Congress.

I like making money. I can pay my employees, pay my house, my insurance..insurance I have now be indentured to pay for 25 year olds who still sit at the kiddie's table and play with the mashed potaters. How about I get to keep my money and then I can hire these children and train them up.

In fact, maybe you need me to handle your health issues.

Posted by swksvolFF 2013-07-03 14:18|| 2013-07-03 14:18|| Front Page Top

#36 One of the problems with insurance is that it is somebody else's money. Why do I care about controlling costs, just give me more! Is it covered by insurance? I want it! If it's not, it should be!

A few years back, a survey question asked if I thought aspirin should be covered by health insurance.

I wanted to reach back through the internet and rip out the surveyor's throat.

Whadda you think, Lex? Should aspirin be covered by somebody else's money? Vitamins? Marijuana?

Posted by Bobby 2013-07-03 14:38|| 2013-07-03 14:38|| Front Page Top

#37 Lex what are you thoughts on Euro-style tort reform?

Posted by Shipman 2013-07-03 14:39|| 2013-07-03 14:39|| Front Page Top

#38 They're not going to allow tort reform until the rest of us have to hit our head on the floor three times while kowtowing. It's part of their way of blackmailing us into signing even more stuff away.

And they act surprised that we don't trust 'em.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-07-03 16:30|| 2013-07-03 16:30|| Front Page Top

#39 If one is not covered by employer health insurance, the insurance mandated by the ACA would have to be bought from the individual health insurance market, which is what UnitedHealth group is wanting NOT to offer. Lex's heavy ranting about UnitedHEalth's behavior merely supports the fact that UnitedHealth acts as a rational actor, refusing to sacrifice itself to Lex's agenda. Lex conveniently forgets that the ACA also MANDATES that pre-existing conditions be covered. UnitedHealth did the numbers and came to the conclusion NOW that True FreeMarketers came to before the act was passed: this would increase expenses that would have to be balanced by premium increases. The higher the premiums, the bigger the incentive to pay the penalty (or is it a tax?), since that is a fixed amount deliberately set by POLITICIANS, not ACTUARIES, to reduce voter blow-back. No premiums, higher expenses, and no incentives for people to buy individual health insurance.

Pile on top of that additional expenses added on by POLITICIANS for POLITICAL reasons (aka birth control), and one should see that any company thinking they will

UnitedHealth refused Lex's demand to be sheared, and he's popping a blood vessel. Scream Louder Lex: The MAGIC of your words WILL turn the tide!

(/sarc)

I should remind people that the current Insurance Industry collectively celebrated passage of the ACA, believing that the law abiding sheeple of the United States would obey the law and buy health insurance. Heck, shares ROSE on the stock market in that sector.

What's different NOW is that Holder's on-again-off-again I'll-enforce-this-law-but-not-THAT-one-against-THIS-person-not-THAT-person has created a populace with a i'll-obey-THIS-law-but-not-THAT-one attitude.

Is that hypocritical? No: BECAUSE the powers of the US government derive from the powers of the governed, if the US Government believes it has the power to selectively enforce or disobey laws, then it must admit that those powers reside in the people as well.

Posted by Ptah 2013-07-03 16:33|| 2013-07-03 16:33|| Front Page Top

#40 "Pile on top of that additional expenses added on by POLITICIANS for POLITICAL reasons (aka birth control), and one should see that any company thinking they will"

Argh. forgot to finish that thought: Pile on top of that additional expenses added on by POLITICIANS for POLITICAL reasons (aka birth control), and one should see that any company thinking they will make money, much less break even, under such a program deserve the clipping that Lex desires them to SUFFER so he may be satisfied.

Posted by Ptah 2013-07-03 16:37|| 2013-07-03 16:37|| Front Page Top

#41 For those that passed this piece of shit law, I will always remember your depravity in treating people like this. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. There will be an account.

You did NOTHING right.

Posted by newc 2013-07-03 21:06|| 2013-07-03 21:06|| Front Page Top

#42 You mention politicians. UnitedHealth, like so much of our rapacious for-profit health sector, is a favored golden landing pad for ex-pols of both parties (iirc, Tom Kean (R) of NJ and Donna Shalala (D) ex-HHS are both current or former board members).

The current system is a sinkhole of waste, abuse, and cruel treatment of sick people. Yeah, the system that's supposed to take care of the sick is the one that preys upon them, creating adverse selection nightmares by means of bulkshit notions like "pre-existing conditions."

The current system is broken and is bankrupting the nation. There are any number of European models that would be a huge improvement on it, both in terms of overall solvency, quality of care, and equality of access.

Fortunately, the fools, thieves and shills who defend it are wasting their breath, because it's finished. Good riddance. Oh, and UnitedHealth's days are numbered. F---these parasites.

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 21:43|| 2013-07-03 21:43|| Front Page Top

#43 Ptah- the "numbers" you refer to are EXACTLY the reason that for-profit health insurance is such a stupid and anti-social concept that all of our peers have eliminated it.

We all get sick. We all need coverage. The whole point is to expand the risk pool as much as possible to spread out risk and cost and take care of everyone.

Again, you need to go back to basic economics and get your head around the fact that * healthcare is not a normal good. *

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 21:49|| 2013-07-03 21:49|| Front Page Top

#44 swksvo - welcome to single payer. This btw is why sone 20-25% of the public did not support the ACA: because it isn't going far enough toward the only rational model, which is the largest possible risk pool with the lowest administrative cost.

Single payer (supplemented by private, optional, NON-PROFIT insurance plans) is far and away the PRO-BUSINESS solution.

The simple fact is that sooner or later, hopefully sooner, we will put a stake through all the for-profit insurers and decouple health care entirely from employment.

It's not the employer's responsibility, and employer-sponsored plans should not receive any subsidy at all. It's a public responsibility that should be provided to everyone and paid for by everyone, via generalized taxes like a VAT.

Imagine the boost to American competitiveness and productivity if your company and every other US company did not have to compete with this ridiculous monkey on your back. Join us: the sooner we move from the half-measure of ACA to a rational single-payer system, the better for the nation.

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 22:01|| 2013-07-03 22:01|| Front Page Top

#45 Were you talking about the need to drive private insurers out of business (and probably, in the process, both increasing costs for the policyholders and/or worsening health care) back when the ACA was under discussion? Did you write Congresspeople to say "Don't bother, it's not Single-Payer, and will make things worse in the short term?" Do you even realize that driving up costs/driving companies out of business is making things worse?

Why should we believe you about your Final Goal of Driving Down Costs when everything your side has done thus far has been to increase costs by adding more administrative layers?

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-07-03 22:14|| 2013-07-03 22:14|| Front Page Top

#46 Good god Lex,

You are a fool. I only get angry because if you were allowed to have your vile views inflicted on others it would mean so many of their deaths from shody treatment like that doled out here in the UK.

If you think single payer insurance is a good idea and bigger pools are better, try it in car insurance first!

Health is personal. Health risks change with age, sex, sexual orientation, job.

Extortion funding of "insurance" is not insurance. It's forced subsidisy of risks.

Akin to the Clinton's sub-prime loans disaster this would kill health care in the USA.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2013-07-03 22:31|| 2013-07-03 22:31|| Front Page Top

#47 A major part of the problem is that 'health care' is three things conflated into one.

1. Catastrophic health insurance, i.e. major medical. Coverage for expenses over, say, 50K. This is real insurance. Everyone should be required to have this. If they can't afford it, see below. For *unexpected* disasters. New knees don't count.

2. Health cost pooling. This is entirely optional. Everyone has health costs, and whether you share them is up to you. If you think yours are higher than average, do you really expect others to pick up the difference? How about a pool to reshingle your roof? Interesting, but required? And everyone has a different opinion about the quality of shingles and how often it needs to be done. Same with knees, lose some weight instead. Or buy a cane.

3. Health care welfare. Yes, there should be a safety net. I'm willing to contribute. But, no knees. Get a damn cane. And no bypass surgery when you're already dying from cancer. The nation clearly can't afford two new knees for everyone or new hearts for 85 year olds who can't fork out for one.

Posted by KBK 2013-07-03 22:44|| 2013-07-03 22:44|| Front Page Top

#48 BP he is an utter fool, but I've never seen a single payor backre that wasn't and they don't understand healthcare models at all.

That's from an RMI major and actuary minor

Posted by Beavis 2013-07-03 22:45|| 2013-07-03 22:45|| Front Page Top

#49 Beavis - with the benefit of your superior training, perhaps you can explain to us all how it is that our Frankenstein keloid he of multiple systems manages to be superior to single payor + supplemental, optional non-profit private insurance when those plans

- are far more efficient than and spend a fraction, in % terms, of our kloodgy non-system that's easily the most wasteful in the advanced world;

- are not only more efficient but alsoore effective, delivering better health outcomes across all categories but a handful of extremely rare, high-end treatments;

- far more equitable and inclusive than our casually cruel system in which private, profit-maximizing companies create armies of chipmunks whose job consists of figuring out ways to deny people benefits and also screw doctors and hospitals.

Give us the benefit of your expertise. How does that work? Why is our system such an abject failure compared to all the major advanced industrial countries' systems?

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 23:00|| 2013-07-03 23:00|| Front Page Top

#50 #37 Shipman: completely favor tort reform. Move us toward a continental model. German, Swiss, French, Swedish: any if these would be a vast improvement on the broken mess we now have, the one that's bankrupting the nation and ruining hundreds of thousands of American families.

Why any pro-business fiscal conservative would favor this current mess is mind-boggling.

Posted by Lex 2013-07-03 23:09|| 2013-07-03 23:09|| Front Page Top

#51 Lex is begging the question again.

The problem is mostly on the medical provider side, not so much the payer side. The single payer will just work out a convenient arrangement between the payer and the providers, and knees will continue to cost 70K, instead of a reasonable 10K, as would hold if market forces prevailed (if you will accept that premise).

Posted by KBK 2013-07-03 23:19|| 2013-07-03 23:19|| Front Page Top

#52 Sorry lex, but you didn't deny that the ACA provided a wedge for bureaucrats to dictate mandates that increase the costs to private insurers. The cause of the demise of private insurance companies is not natural, but artificially created (incidentally, by the same people who will "run" "single payer"). A lot of people foresaw this, but it was denied because buy-in from the insurance companies was needed to pass ACA.

And there is no such thing as Single payer. You yourself admit that additional taxes will have to be raised to cover the "extras" that the Politicians can't take back, and to cover EVERYONE. The productive will "pay". What you want is actually "Single Disburser": the government making decisions with money they TOOK from people who were smart enough to make it. It is EASY to TAKE money if you have the guns and the power, much less easy to MAKE it.

Another word for it is MONOPOLY.

But its NOT BAD if YOU are in control, eh?

Posted by Ptah 2013-07-03 23:29|| 2013-07-03 23:29|| Front Page Top

#53 Speaking for this pro-business fiscal conservative, I hardly favor the current mess.

OCare, and your solutions, will make it worse, IMHO. The answer lies in appropriately regulated free markets.

And, yes, executive compensation packages are excessive across the board. That's an issue that can be solved with tax policy, here and in the EU. It's the consumer tech products companies that are making 15% net regularly, not the health care organizations.

Posted by KBK 2013-07-03 23:30|| 2013-07-03 23:30|| Front Page Top

#54 Single payor only works for the young healthy, it really sucks for the sick. Compare survival rates on breast, colon and prostate cancer. Check wait times for hip and knees. Sorry Lex but I've forgotten more about health care models than you'll ever know.

Posted by Beavis 2013-07-03 23:40|| 2013-07-03 23:40|| Front Page Top

#55
OCare, and your solutions, will make it worse, IMHO. The answer lies in appropriately regulated free markets

Exactly, what's the price of LASIK? It was $1750 an eye when I had it in 01, it's now about $500-600 an eye.

Posted by Beavis 2013-07-03 23:45|| 2013-07-03 23:45|| Front Page Top

#56 The reality of single payor

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=aE-I0ombIEY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DaE-I0ombIEY

Posted by Beavis 2013-07-03 23:51|| 2013-07-03 23:51|| Front Page Top

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