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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (215965)	2/2/2007 1:17:55 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I don't see Medicare's low overhead as being the result of 'efficiency'. I see it as a function of having little or no sales and marketing costs and being non-profit. When you strip out profit, sales, and marketing expenses, the cost of doing business is significantly reduced. I think that's what most proponents of a single-payer system mean when they compare the overhead costs of Medicare to the overhead costs of an insurance company, such as Aetna or Blue-Cross, etc.

To: neolib who wrote (215965)	2/2/2007 1:50:10 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

It seems to me that the need for an insurance company to be competitive and profitable creates an adversarial relationship with the customer. By its very structure, there are compelling incentives to limit, alter, cap, and even deny service. It's really no different than any service industry, i.e. promise alot but try to deliver as little as possible in order to widen the profit margin. I'm a capitalist and have no problem with that structure....one just has to just try and be an informed shopper. When you get burned, one just can go shop elsewhere. But that adversarial structure becomes very problematic with regard to health care, esp. in the area of chronic and/or catastrophic illnesses. And I don't think anyone's mentioned the problems of bankruptcy by a health insurance company. Against these considerations and others, a medicare type system , by its very structure could be simpler, less costly, more straightforward, and more efficient for healthcare providers to conform to.

To: neolib who wrote (215965)	2/2/2007 2:16:43 PM
From: geode00	Respond to of 281500

The use of insurance as a method of payment and the resulting loop dynamics when an ill person seeks treatment. Nobody here has addressed that issue. You just don't pay attention. Are you honestly saying that the availability of health insurance causes people to become sick? Aside from the small problem of attention-seeking hypochondriacs, prove that this is true. So you're saying that people with great insurance, the wealthy for example, are sicker than those without insurance?