Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Cogito who wrote (130309)	2/6/2010 9:07:12 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541933

There's the profit, plus the cost of advertising and promotion, among other things. There is no question that there are costs in a profit system that don't exist in other systems. The cost of advertising and promotion cannot be attributed to a profit system. My carrier is not-for-profit. It has promotion costs. Those costs are a function of having multiple providers rather than single payer. You cannot attribute them to profit. Here, we have lots of organizations designed to make a profit by coming up with all kinds of different health insurance plans, advertising and marketing them, and then making sure that they never pay out too much. See above. Multiple providers, whether for profit or not, will have to take care that they don't pay out too much. I guess it's just a question of deciding what the goal is. I take that as an reference to a perceived goal of profit. If so, I don't think it holds up. I know what I would prefer it to be. What would you prefer the goal to be? I would have two goals. One would be to maximize the overall output of the system in terms of benefit and cost-effectiveness. The other would be to not constrain individual options to pursue individual results when their lives are at stake. I am indifferent to whether or not anyone makes a profit. If it takes profit to meet my goals, fine. If it takes removing profit to meet my goals, that's fine, too. In case anyone things otherwise, my argument has not been in favor of profit. My argument has been against what I believe to be a mistaken and misguided notion that profit is a key element of the problem we face.

To: Cogito who wrote (130309)	2/6/2010 9:39:38 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541933

<<<I guess it's just a question of deciding what the goal is. I know what I would prefer it to be. >>> The goal has to be to make healthcare as efficient as possible. There is no way possible for a profit incentive to make the system more efficient. You can spin it all you want but profit is anything that takes away from providing health care. Worse than pure profit is what the profit motive brings to the table. Take away graft, corruption, marketing, sales, and related G&A expenses you still have duplication of effort in billing and keeping records straight. Every provider has to have their own proprietary system. Just think of the extra costs besides the inability to share information and mistakes being made by adding to the layers of unnecessary complexity. How can you possibly believe that somehow a profit motive can bring efficiency to this type of system. You have to have a wild imagination to believe that the profit component only adds 3% to overall costs.

To: Cogito who wrote (130309)	2/6/2010 10:03:11 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541933

Don't forget all the collections agencies that get money for threatening people until they pay their bill, or die...