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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (13800)	3/3/2010 12:49:49 PM
From: Alighieri	Respond to of 42652

Two points I have been pointing out for some time. Al =========================================================== Q. Why not? Without competition to help control prices, won’t consumers end up paying more for health care? A. Not necessarily. Patient interests are not the same as provider interests. Insurers are intermediaries between whoever is paying for care and the providers that furnish the care. The insurer is operating in two markets: in the market for services, where it’s a buyer, and the market for insurance, where it’s a seller. There’s the possibility that through consolidation, if insurers succeed in paying less for care by lowering the prices that providers get paid, that some of those savings might be passed through to consumers. Q. What about the public option? If that were to be passed as part of health reform, would it spur competition and lower prices? A. It depends on the details. A robust public option that paid providers at Medicare rates really would affect competition because those rates would be a lot lower than what private insurers pay. But that won’t pass. The provision in the House bill — a public option where the plan has to negotiate its own rates with providers — would not have much impact. It would be a weak competitor.