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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Hayden who wrote (130133)	2/4/2010 5:17:15 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541791

For profit health insurance is FOR PROFIT. As is for profit food sales, for profit housing, for profit transportation modes, and for profit all sorts of important things. Generally that's a big plus not a minus. An argument can be made that health care or health insurance is an exception, but its not a reasonable default position, you have to actually make the argument.

To: Jeff Hayden who wrote (130133)	2/5/2010 2:54:17 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541791

For profit health insurance is FOR PROFIT. Not for yours or my health. Is that hard to understand? No, not hard to understand, on its face. Seems to me, though, that it's not as simple as "profit is the root of all evil." That's an ideological reaction, not an analysis. Sure, profit takes something off the top. I think it's about three percent for health insurance. OTOH, profit is incentive, as long as there's competition, that is. If you have a crappy product, you're not going to make a profit for very long. OTOH, if you excel... There's a trade-off. I don't know where the fulcrum is. I only know that when folks go after something like that, they tend to focus on only one side of the equation. Seems to me that the better course would be to make profit work for us by increasing competition. The upside is likely a lot more than the 3% you save by getting rid of profit. But if you insist on going at it that way, then just charter all health insurance companies as non-profits. That's a straight-forward fix. At least model the impact, though, before rushing in to smite the mighty profit demon.