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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: JohnM who wrote (133690)3/19/2010 11:40:06 AM
From: Steve Lokness  Read Replies (2) of 543071
 
John;

It's the structural incentives that matter. How do health insurance companies make money? By denying payment to folk they insure.

Leaving the Krugman piece aside - for now - this statement of yours is exactly why I favor turning the entire health care over to the government - well the control of payments. The example given is criminal and these guys should be thrown in jail in my opinion, but doing that misses the real issue here. The issue is that if you have insurance companies in charge of distribution of care then we better understand their incentive is mandated to increase profits. That is their raison d'etre. This is just not a solution in the long run IMO.

If you want our care cost managed by insurance companies, the only solution is some how making the penalties for misconduct harsh enough that no company will try the kind of evil in the Krugman piece. In my state for instance, we passed a referendum penalizing insurance companies three time the original bill if they fail to pay (auto insurance). What company would take the chance knowing that besides a legal battle they might end up owing three times the original payment? Same could be done for the Krugman issue. But instead of that we have the nonsense of telling insurance companies they can't deny coverage - as if the incentives will have somehow changed with the health care bill. Do that and I promise rates are going up and up and up. They're going to explain this by saying we had to take on all these people with preexisting EXPENSIVE cost. If rates go up - has that fixed our health care issue?
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