Steve StrezaDec 6, 2024
It really cannot be overstated enough: "For-profit health insurance" is fundamentally incompatible with keeping people healthy. UnitedHealthcare did not deny 1 out of every 3 claims because they thought they weren't medically valuable, they did it because they knew they could get away with it. The entire system cannot ever provide health as a meaningful outcome. It must be eliminated and replaced with taxation and a single-payer institution built on care, not resource hoarding.
Show threadmike805

@stevestreza It could also be replaced by a free market in health care with published prices, the right to know what things will cost ahead of time (they already impose this on car mechanics!) and generous subsidies for the poor.

If you are going to subsidize something, do it right out in the open. Write a check. That way everyone can see the costs and nobody can hide any ripoffs.

Insurance should be for the unlikely but catastrophic cases, not for ordinary care.

Dec 6, 2024 at 1:52amWeb
Show threadbseDec 6, 2024
@stevestreza @mike805 👎🏼
Show threadmike805Dec 6, 2024

@doktrock @stevestreza Start out by asking, what function do insurance companies currently provide? Why is it so important to have insurance?

Health insurers are buyers' unions that engage in collective bargaining with the providers, in order to get their members slightly less outrageous prices. Of course they are nasty corrupt mobbed-up unions that rip off their customers as much as possible. But in the current system you either belong to a gang or you are at the mercy of them...

Show threadmike805Dec 6, 2024

@doktrock @stevestreza The individual doctor, who does not belong to a hospital or medical group, is equally screwed.

We need to get the mafia style economics out of health care. The way to do that is to enforce antitrust laws. Price fixing is already a felony but the medical industry does it all the time and is never punished. Lock them up!

You should be able to get competitive quotes for medical procedures just like for car repair. Charging more than quoted should be a crime.

Show threadmike805Dec 6, 2024
@doktrock @stevestreza Of course poor people have to have publicly subsidized health care. But poor people already get publicly subsidized food, without the government taking over all the supermarkets. (If they did take over all the supermarkets we'd probably starve.) Health care can be done the same way.