kingshrubbwe're a nation of middlemen
notsosureInsurance is a company that takes small amounts of money monthly in the event of a large expense that you are unable to pay for. Then they donāt give you all the money to cover the expense. -At least not without a fight. They take ~7% of your money for this service.
Taking your premiums and finding ways to deny your claim.
Done, whatās next?
lololathe first step for you would be shutting up and having your first neuron activation at last
Midnight WolfLmfao, itās nerdy as hell but hilarious
Bet thatās not as revealing as understanding what good healthcare without insurance is about.
Understanding what can & what canāt be a free market is a step before that first step tho.
An insurance organization operated for the benefit of the insured gives value. An insurance organization run for the benefit of investors gives the barest minimum (or less) to the insured and takes lives in the name of profits.
CorkyskogIt would make sense if health insurance just covered hospitalizations, catastrophic diseases, etc. But itās required for any healthcare to be affordable and healthcare is a necessity.
Its like a subscription model, but worse because you donāt actually know what will be included (covered) or denied.
Imagine if 90% of the time, Spotify would only play an album if you asked to play it twice, unless it was an album in the billboard top ten, and sometimes it would decide to not play an album at all, and it had made deals with every record company that made physical media versions of albums cost $5,000. Thatās what health insurance is like.
Dont give them ideas!
Look at finance! They donāt make anything of actual value, they just bet whatās going to happen to the people that do
Companies can do things without investors, but investors canāt do anything without companies
diabetic_porcupineOh shit I have a toilet too how do I invest
No way Iām doing that right now
explodicleIf they did that, then theyād be contributing useful information about which ideas are good. But they donāt even do that anymore; the finance game has been rigged since the bailouts started.
Health insurers donāt contribute information. You donāt need to know what your odds of getting sick are because youāre going to want treatment either way. A choice where the alternative is death isnāt a choice.
BlackmistThe US should adopt the Dutch healthcare system. You could have medical treatment as an average Joe and also not be bankrupt or up to your tits in debt.
yeah, but, like the lines are long
/s
A_norny_mousseI hope sheās criticizing for profit companies and not the concept of health insurance per se.
Privatised healthcare providers are also an issue.
Or, if you want private capital involved on either side - overall de-/non-regulation is a major problem too.
There are so many instruments the govs could use but just donāt bcs monies.
Nah. Germany has health insurance and while itās far from perfect, itās on a different planet compared to US health insurance.
No. Franceās health insurance has many issues, butā¦ I recently had to wait one whole month to get non-urgent jaw surgery at the top hospital in the country. Stayed for a week. It should cost me 50ā¬ or so, including meds and post-op care.
As others have said, we can look to other countries for examples of health insurance being done well. Insurance serves an important function for things that would otherwise create large debt unpredictably. It just doesnāt work well as a for-profit non-utility industry.
I would say the main issue for the US is the actual healthcare providers charging so much. Insurance companies do enable that in a sense by allowing people to get healthcare that otherwise would be unaffordable. Members are insulated from the cost and simply want their desired care approved, so hospitals take advantage of this by charging increasingly ludicrous amounts. And since at minimum 80% of health insurance premium revenue must go to paying member services, this means coverage costs inevitably spiral.
Insurance companies disappearing would eventually lead to lower prices since patients would no longer be able to afford healthcare, but thatās obviously not a good solution. Government regulating the price of healthcare more directly would allow insurance to be both cheaper and more optional.
Whatās the point of health insurance anyway?
They just charge exorbitant prices for basic BS. Single bandage at the hospital? $20 please JUST for the bandage, nothing yet for the nurse, no no thatās separate.
Meanwhile you could get 10 bandages at the local pharmacy for $5 and if youāre nice the clerk wraps it around your wound.
The only system that makes sense is a controlled state system like we have in the EU where the prices are strictly regulated.
Hell, even here the prices are high, but not THAT high.
kn0wmad1cYou give me money in exchange for a promise, and I wonāt honor that promise when you ask for assistance.
Both are horrible to ever exist!
And for the same reason - it can never be a free market is demand and supply arenāt both free.
Wanting healthcare when in need isnāt really that much of a free choice (demand).
That means on supply side where everyone is motivated by profit you donāt need any sort of collusion for everyone to consistently pump up healthcare costs & healthcare insurance premiums, there just isnāt any downside.
Direct market competition is financially pointless so all you ever see is mergers.
Oh - and comprehensive national healthcare has insurance built in naturally & efficiently bcs countries have millions of people that pay for healthcare (and no profit is privatised, even better, participants arenāt driven by profit).
In recent decades in Europe we underfunded national healthcare providers & are now slowly privatising it - costs are soaring (nothing compared to USA, but we know whatās happening, yet we donāt vote for it/representatives donāt act on it).
SteamymoomilkRemember pryimid schemes are illegal.
Because they dont sell a product.
Theyāre not illegal because they donāt sell a product, theyāre illegal because theyāre impossible to maintain mathematically.
Itās not far off from a Ponzi scheme, honestly. A few people are going to make a lot of money early on and everybody else is going to get rapidly diminishing returns to nothing.
Pocket lininā gatekeepinā
circuitfarmerWhen the US was having actual discussions of single-payer health care (i.e. the āpublic optionā during Obamaās first term), one major argument against it was ādo you really want the government between you and your doctor?!ā
Even though insurance companies are literally already between you and your doctor, and they exist purely to extract money from that interaction.
Itās never made sense.
And then the same party decided to get the government in there too anyways
Ahaha thatās a good point. Tbh despite the nickname āObamacareā it had slipped my mind that the ACA was the bastardized, castrated version of that whole thing.
They chopped it down to Romneycare
Dozzi92The old arguments were āLook how long they (the socialists) wait to get appointments and get seen!ā Yep, weāre there now. I have insurance, I still pay a bunch, and seeing specialists is a luxury at this point. If I have an issue, I donāt even consider calling specialists, because I know itās weeks til I can get in.
during Obamaās first term
Lol this was just about the first thing Clinton tried to get done in 1993. Itās one of things that led to the creation of Fox News.
Itās never made sense.
It makes perfect sense for the americans who have been conditioned for literal decades to react certain ways to certain things, while being kept ignorant of nice things that exist in the rest of the world.
For instance:
Government-run anything? It is mathematically and physically impossible for it to benefit society. It will, without fail, become a corrupt dumpster fire that furthers evil in our world.
Market-based solution that leans heavily on āpersonal responsibility?ā Well thatās just great I tells ya! It lobs like the best, kindest, and most Christlike solution is to do nothing and let them fend for themselves! They will be stronger for it and will thank us!
I donāt want anyone between me and my doctor. Doctors should be deciding what care I require and billing the govt for it. If the government thinks something fishy is going on, they can audit them after the fact. I need not be involved.
I donāt trust the government, but I trust them a hell of a lot more than insurance companies of all people
You forgot that Clinton tried as well.
Let me state up front I agree with you. A less charitable reading of what Iām about to say would try to make it seem like Iām putting the blame on other things to deflect. Iām not. Insurance companies fucking suck and are among the reasons itās expensive.
Like everything itās more complicated than a single factor. Tying healthcare to jobs is part of it. Boosting the number of people signing up for the military is part of it for both VA insurance and college. The cost of college (with its financial middlemen as well) for doctors is part of it.
Insurance is a huge reason. There are a hundred other little reasons as well, many of them also dealing with financial middlemen, that contribute to the issue. Itās a Gordian Knot of idiocy and when it gets sliced itās going to be painful and, once the initial pain is done, necessary in hindsight.
Thatās not entirely true. I mean, theyāre one of the biggest parts of the problem.
Special thanks to the people who made MRI exist! Itās a good thing they can each scan tens of thousands of people.
