for freepers: one person one vote or one dollar one vote gives more healthcare control?

[yurbud]

All other factors being equal, would you have more power challenge a decision of your health insurance company if it was public or private?

If it was public, you could contact your congressman and senators, and get them to browbeat the public insurance administrator to fix the problem because the elected officials want your vote.

If it was private, one dollar one vote rules, so as soon as you make a claim instead of a payment, you lose power. You are often locked into binding arbitration as a condition of your coverage, which recent research has shown to be rigged in favor of big business. Investors on the other hand must always be paid, so their power is great, and undiminished by the profits paid out to them, unlike your power which is diminished every time they write a check to cover your treatment.

The free market notion of caveat emptor doesn't work here because once you get sick, you can't get other insurance. So the penalty for not reading the fine print or every consumer advocacy site for reviews of insurance before buying is bankruptcy or death. If your employer provides the health care, you don't even have that modicum of control.

What do freepers and town hall frothers think they are going to do if they are denied coverage by their insurance?