Evan 🇺🇦
Steve StrezaIt 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.
Abbie 🇵🇷🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈@stevestreza even the "non-profit" insurers are messed up.
Kancept@stevestreza at least someone is out there starting at the top of these companies.
mike805@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.
bse@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...
@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.
@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.
Corb_The_Lesser@stevestreza You are correct. For-profit insurance only works when cash reserves and cash coming in exceeds cash paid out in claims. There is always an incentive to limit payouts. That should be obvious to everyone.
I'd like to see a US version of Britain's NHS but there are a number of good national programs the US can learn from to build something to replace the deliberately overpriced and ineffective system we have with one that eliminates income as a determinant of health care access.
Proto Himbo EuropeanInsurance lobbyists have terrified us with visions of "welfare queens" wasting taxpayer money.
Thompson made $24M in 2022. I guarantee that came from the pockets of taxpayers.
That's $48K each to 500 welfare queens. Please give 500 welfare queens that money instead of a CEO. I don't care if those 500 people really are goldbricking leeches on the system. Those $24M would make 500 people's lives better and nobody's life any worse than the simple fact of paying a few bucks toward something that didn't benefit them personally. The CEO of a company like United makes tens of thousands of people's lives worse, and who knows how many people's lives infinitely worse by existing--his entire job is to funnel money to shareholders no matter who that hurts.
Waste money on 500 people committing small-scale fraud or one mega-rich person committing fraud and (arguably) bodily harm and murder on a much larger scale? No contest. Burning those $24M would be better for the world than giving it to the CEO of a health insurance company.
The "waste" in the system will always exist. If I get to choose where healthcare money is wasted, I want it wasted on 500 poor people a year who--at worst--simply make the money disappear into their lives, not on one rich sociopath who uses that money to hurt thousands of other people.
StuartB@guyjantic
It's not just that - giving that money to those with very little will see that money flow through local businesses, keeping other people employed, often flowing through the local economy several times.
Giving it to his ilk sees that money vanish from the economy, tied up in stocks, shares, bonds, and other financial instruments.
It's not just that - giving that money to those with very little will see that money flow through local businesses, keeping other people employed, often flowing through the local economy several times.
Giving it to his ilk sees that money vanish from the economy, tied up in stocks, shares, bonds, and other financial instruments.
@stuartb Oh, absolutely. I've seen reasoning and research that point exactly to this. My argument is that, even if Republicans' worst fever-fantasy-nightmares about "welfare queens" were real, it would still make a lot more sense to give the "waste" to them instead of to healthcare CEOs and shareholders.
@guyjantic
Oh, yeah, this is just one more point in favour of UBI, preferably as a precursor to abolishing the whole financial system.
Who is worth more to a MegaCorp - the CEO, or the hardworking, loyal staff who do all the work and reap very few of the benefits?
Especially when that CEO runs the company into the ground and escapescwith a golden parachute while the staff get laid off?
I would go further, and say that the average homeless person is of more worth to society than the average CEO - they arent the ones trying to burn the whole planet in order to enrich themselves.
Oh, yeah, this is just one more point in favour of UBI, preferably as a precursor to abolishing the whole financial system.
Who is worth more to a MegaCorp - the CEO, or the hardworking, loyal staff who do all the work and reap very few of the benefits?
Especially when that CEO runs the company into the ground and escapescwith a golden parachute while the staff get laid off?
I would go further, and say that the average homeless person is of more worth to society than the average CEO - they arent the ones trying to burn the whole planet in order to enrich themselves.
drdr6262A tax funded health system with access based on need is the only humane way to do it, in my opinion. A system that will only treat illnesses when a profit can be made is just not morally acceptable.
SearingTruth"We must end the predatory Health Destruction Industry in one fell swoop, lest one more innocent life than already condemned be sacrificed to profit.
Single payer healthcare for all Americans is the only just practice, and solution."
SearingTruth
Oggie@stevestreza
It's also, and this is something that really hurts my brain, actively worse for the US in every sense. It turns out, preventative care is way, way cheaper than emergent, and exponentially more effective. More people in better health is in every way better for any group of people, since it ties up fewer resources.
It's also, and this is something that really hurts my brain, actively worse for the US in every sense. It turns out, preventative care is way, way cheaper than emergent, and exponentially more effective. More people in better health is in every way better for any group of people, since it ties up fewer resources.
David W. Jones@stevestreza
Small suggestion re phrasing. How about "'For-profit health *care*' is fundamentally incompatible with keeping people healthy"?
@Firlefanz
Small suggestion re phrasing. How about "'For-profit health *care*' is fundamentally incompatible with keeping people healthy"?
@Firlefanz
HoldMyType@stevestreza and it is a secure collateral off you re paying your premium on time
just like interest on house you ve bought on home loan and want to collateralise
just like interest on house you ve bought on home loan and want to collateralise
CartyBoston@stevestreza I have a nit, and it's a critical topic so I hope I am not being annoying.
I don't think it matters how many payers there are as long as they are appropriately regulated and subsidized. People use "single payer" as a policy proposal but it's really not, a single payer can hose patients too.
ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘@stevestreza Health insurance is designed to give out *less* than it takes in. That's why I decided to put the money in the bank instead, at the highest interest rate possible.