General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe existence of private insurance strongly correlates with higher health care costs
http://theconversation.com/creating-a-better-health-system-lessons-from-norway-and-sweden-30366Private insurance, however, is an expensive way to fund health care. When we look at the relationship between private insurance and a nations total health-care costs, we find a strong positive relationship: the more a country relies on private insurance the more it pays for health care, without any extra benefit.
Its not just the bureaucratic cost of private insurance; its also the distortions it introduces, for when there is a private insurer in the market, able to pay premium prices for priority access to care, prices throughout the health system rise, both for the public insurer and for those who pay for health care from their own pockets.
The graph below shows the relationship between countries health-care costs (as a proportion of GDP) and reliance on private insurance. These are all countries with only minor differences in their health outcomes. (For the statisticians, R Squared = 0.66.)
At one end of the scale, the United States stands out. At the other end are three countries Sweden, Norway and Iceland, where private insurance is either absent or plays a minuscule role in funding health care. And these countries contain their total health-care costs (as does Australia for now), to around 9% of GDP. This is in spite of the fact that Sweden, the largest of these countries, has a significantly older population than Australia.
Adam051188
(711 posts)BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)Yeah, who could have possibly known?????????????? We all love our health insurance don't we?
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)"How could mandating 25% overhead charges, and a layer of greedy middlemen, increase costs? I don't get it"
hunter
(38,817 posts)Duh.
elias7
(4,180 posts)They bring nothing to the table, just skim a layer off of people's misery, and create a bunch more misery to boot.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)I don't think it's as simple as the "health insurance = evil" line people try to sell here. Medicare uses private provisioners for a reason. They're also not the ones actually skimming the real money: that's pharma and device manufacturers:
elias7
(4,180 posts)as traditional Medicare.
I don't know about the yahoo business data you quote, but there is no accounting for the massive administrative costs of private vs public insurance.
The main issue for me is this: just what do these companies bring to the table? Can you explain to me why they're not just a middle man taking a cut?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)I'm talking about Medicare. It uses private insurers to provision actual care. Medicaid does even more.
but there is no accounting for the massive administrative costs of private vs public insurance.
Right, but Medicare's low overhead rate only counts getting the money to the provisioning insurer. They take premiums and subsidies and give money to Blue Cross and a few other big provisioners. This takes very little overhead. The provisioners then do the actual billing and payment work, which brings me to:
just what do these companies bring to the table?
Provisioning. Something Medicare doesn't even try to do on its own.
Princess Turandot
(4,823 posts)You're referring to the various 'claims processing' functions, correct? That's what those activities are usually called in the US, in my experience.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)(Not physical cash nowadays, obviously, but still.)
Medicare pays private insurers to actually get the money to providers, because this ends up being cheaper for the government.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)Centenes CEO Micheal Neidorff saw his compensation increase 71 percent last year, from $8.5 million to $14.5 million. Even more impressive was the 140 percent raise Molinas J. Mario Molina got. His compensation jumped from $4.95 million in 2012 to $11.9 million in 2013...
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/06/09/14912/skyrocketing-salaries-health-insurance-ceos
$30.7 m/yr, 14.5 m/yr for what? Shifting dollars, and squeezing "patients" dry. $30 million a year is ~2 million + per month. 2 MILLION DOLLARS A MONTH. While waitresses and landscapers have to file a return and pay taxes on a few hundred. The system is totally broken. Totally.
Profits and customers guaranteed by law. The gravy train has left the station, won't be long before other things besides "health insurance" are mandated.
JEB
(4,748 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)And they can't negotiate good prices from the gougers, pharma and device manufacturers.
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/2/6089693/health-care-facts-whats-wrong-american-insurance
RandiFan1290
(6,365 posts)add that to their Bush/Obama tax cuts and we could ALL retire to our beach house in Hawaii!
Mahalo!
Orsino
(37,428 posts)Specifically, corporate freedom to profit from our blood.