"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message news:VoGdnc6Ne-
In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

Having the goverment operate as one of the insurers in a pool of many
has
the potential to keep costs in line far better than anything short of
going
back to having no insurance at all. It would provide a baseline for
comparison and I believe would keep costs better in line. I think
that's
true primarily because of how the insurers squawked at the "public
option."
On one hand, they say the Federal government is incompetent in
everything it
does, then, on the other hand they claim they would be seriously
undercut by
the government's massive negotiating power. Which is it, health
insurers?

That isn't how it worked here. Indeed, with MCare paying about 60
cents for every dollar the Mean Old Insurance companies pay for similar
diagnosis (and MCaid less 50 cents) I would submit that government is
actually ADDING to costs by cost shifting.

So then why were insurers raising holy hell about the public option?
Something doesn't add up unless the premiums are wildly different, which I
suspect they are. Not allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices the way
TriCare does might have something to do with their bad overall performance.
If MCare pays more, why do so many doctors balk at accepting MCare patients?

Perhaps insurance should be limited to true, bankrupting disasters and
not
for routine office visits.


I would submit (I've doing that a lot lately) that is exactly why
what we have now can't be called insurance. Insurance is generally
defined as taking a rare but costly risk and spreading it out among a
bunch of people. Health insurance as currently structured takes a minor
risk (going to a doctor, etc). Can you imagine the cost of your
homeowners if it included routine maintenance as payout?

Good point. That's the ghost of WWII and wage controls. We got into a
crazy system (as we do with a lot of things) and then it grew like kudzu
vines until we were completely trapped in it.

--
Bobby G.