One of the more disturbing lines of argument I see when health care is discussed is the one that implies “profit” essentially equals poor care and high prices.
A perfect example of that comes from an ad the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.Org in which it says:
“President Obama and 70 percent of voters support healthcare reform that includes a public health insurance option to contain costs, increase competition and guarantee coverage,” the narrator in the ad states.
“The insurance industry says with new rules they can do it alone, but they’ll find a way to put profits first. We need a health insurance choice not run by the insurance companies to keep costs down and ensure access to quality, affordable care.”
The unanswered question, of course, is why is it assumed a “for profit” operation cannot “keep costs down and ensure access to quality affordable care?” The obvious answer is, it can. We see it all the time among competitive companies in various industries. The reason 40” Sony HD TVs aren’t priced at $6,000 dollars is because Samsung and LG make them too. And you can trust that everyone of them is making a profit.
Our problem in health care is not insurance company profit. It is the structure of the system (employer based) and the lack of competitiveness in the insurance market. As economist Arnold Kling once declared, we don’t have health insurance, we have health insulation. Compared to any other insurance product, health insurance is a definite outlier. We’d laugh if someone said car insurance should cover oil changes. That’s because we understand that car insurance is there to cover expensive and catastrophic events, not routine maintenance. We understand that to do that, we’d have to pay much more in car insurance than we now do. Yet we expect health insurance to cover that routine maintenance when it comes to our health.
Those insurance companies who sell car insurance make a profit while competing in a nationwide pool of drivers. Car insurance remains something in which people have access to a quality, affordable product that is still profitable for its seller.
It isn’t profit which is the problem in health care. It is the distorted market (Medicare and Medicaid and government mandates), the structure of the market (employer based) and the expectations of the public for health insurance that it holds for no other insurance product it buys.
Until those problems are addressed, no matter who runs health care or insures it, no progress will be made toward providing access to “quality, affordable care”. And without profit, there’s no incentive to provide it either.
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Comments
Yep. Change the tax code that exempts health insurance as taxable income, that problem would be solved. Reform medicare and medicaid so they are minimal (or replaced by charity), and enact tort reform.
A free market solution that would provide best quaility and lowest prices. But, it fails in one major way: it doesn't do anything for obama and the Democratic Party.
Fine, then treat health care insurance like car insurance. make it mandatory. You get a ticket if you drive uninsured. It's not like you have a choice not to carry car insurance. And it seems anything but affordable to me, given that they can charge you more based on your credit report.
So, You are saying that our current system is fine and that nothing is broke?
That is is just fine for the middle class to support the health care insurance structure while subsidizing care for people who can't pay?
And this is because the middle class is doing so well now, what with every institution picking on our bones?
Your saying that we have the same access to information for getting heath care services that we would for buying a TV set?
If that is the case could you kindly direct me to the MSRP for a root canal?
Car insurance is given as an example of a 'for profit' system that works, wow you must be kidding, they now have over 400 categories for car insurance put together by clever weasels to make sure that who ever you are you can be overcharged, and that the products are too complex for any real govt. regulation.
The middle can't afford this anymore we are being errased, the money hates single payer because they know they will have to pay for the poor.
The biggest problem with car insurance is that the state mandates it. This is what makes the cost go up and the service go down. Just exactly like what will happen under Obama's socialized medicine scam.
RL- There are things that could be improved in the current system. All of your complaints are examples of government meddling and breaking the system. More socialism won't solve anything, since socialism and government control are what caused the problems we have in the first place. Are you really not capable of researching and discovering the "MSRP" of a root canal in your area?
Haha, when did health care become a right? lol. I think it's funny how so many people want to make this a _mandatory_ thing when all you should have are the basic rights - life, liberty, and property. Anything else requires you to violate someone else's rights - just ask at whose expense does gov't health care come at? It's so morally wrong when you think about it....
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