Could 2012 Be the Last Presidential Election??????
On Thu, 1 Mar 2012 12:59:59 -0800 (PST), Josh Rosenbluth
wrote: On Mar 1, 3:28*pm, RD Sandman wrote: George Plimpton wrote : and told private companies that they must provide products for free, No, he didn't. The insurance companies are private sector companies. *When he backed off requiring church employers to provide contraceptive devices he said that the insurance companies would provide them for free. *We all know that isn't going to work. *There is no free lunch. *Ergo, the church organizations will be paying for those contraceptives via their healthcare fees. I thought it was cheaper for insurance companies to provide contraception than not to because of the cost of pregnancy care. You're right. However, it's more complicated. Medicaid can show real savings. The Guttmacher Institute and some other health care policy institutes have done the research on this, and Medicaid basically buys it. About half the states have applied contraceptive coverage as part of the pre-natal package for Medicaid and the like recipients, and it works out. But here's a point that's not often considered outside of the industry, regarding private insurers: The average person remains with one private insurer for a bit more than 3-1/2 years. Like most forms of preventive care, private insurers find that there is no benefit to them in providing it. If they do, some other insurance company is likely to reap the benefit. I studied this in regard to diabetes prevention, and the same principles apply to contraception. Insurance companies don't talk much about it, but their incentive to provide preventive treatment of any kind is small or nonexistent. Financially, it's generally a loser for them. So it's the kind of thing that you can only make work through regulation -- like seat belts or fireproof materials in an automobile. The natural, market-driven incentives in both cases are perverse. That's when you need regulation. -- Ed Huntress |
Could 2012 Be the Last Presidential Election??????
On Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:28:11 -0500, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 1 Mar 2012 12:59:59 -0800 (PST), Josh Rosenbluth wrote: I thought it was cheaper for insurance companies to provide contraception than not to because of the cost of pregnancy care. You're right. However, it's more complicated. .... But here's a point that's not often considered outside of the industry, regarding private insurers: The average person remains with one private insurer for a bit more than 3-1/2 years. Like most forms of preventive care, private insurers find that there is no benefit to them in providing it. If they do, some other insurance company is likely to reap the benefit. I studied this in regard to diabetes prevention, and the same principles apply to contraception. Insurance companies don't talk much about it, but their incentive to provide preventive treatment of any kind is small or nonexistent. Financially, it's generally a loser for them. So it's the kind of thing that you can only make work through regulation -- like seat belts or fireproof materials in an automobile. The natural, market-driven incentives in both cases are perverse. That's when you need regulation. Exactly---and that is why the insurance companies support such broad mandate: it levels the field by denying the unfair advantage of skimping such coverage. The end result is that everybody is more profitable. |
Could 2012 Be the Last Presidential Election??????
On Mon, 12 Mar 2012 05:34:39 +0000 (UTC), Przemek Klosowski
wrote: On Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:28:11 -0500, Ed Huntress wrote: On Thu, 1 Mar 2012 12:59:59 -0800 (PST), Josh Rosenbluth wrote: I thought it was cheaper for insurance companies to provide contraception than not to because of the cost of pregnancy care. You're right. However, it's more complicated. ... But here's a point that's not often considered outside of the industry, regarding private insurers: The average person remains with one private insurer for a bit more than 3-1/2 years. Like most forms of preventive care, private insurers find that there is no benefit to them in providing it. If they do, some other insurance company is likely to reap the benefit. I studied this in regard to diabetes prevention, and the same principles apply to contraception. Insurance companies don't talk much about it, but their incentive to provide preventive treatment of any kind is small or nonexistent. Financially, it's generally a loser for them. So it's the kind of thing that you can only make work through regulation -- like seat belts or fireproof materials in an automobile. The natural, market-driven incentives in both cases are perverse. That's when you need regulation. Exactly---and that is why the insurance companies support such broad mandate: it levels the field by denying the unfair advantage of skimping such coverage. The end result is that everybody is more profitable. That's true. As long as our insurance companies are for-profit (unlike those of Switzerland, which are not-for-profit and which have a much more effective set of business incentives to serve the insured), the whole package of the ACA is a big winner for them. That's why it won't do anything, as it is, to bring costs down. But it's a first step. -- Ed Huntress |
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