Comments on: How Has Government Regulation Of Health Care Has Affected Affordability?

By: justagir

justagir — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:35:15 +0000

Government regulation has not caused any of that. In fact, it’s the result of a lack of regulation, which has allowed insurance companies to monopolize the market along with out of control malpractice suits. Obama’s healthcare plan addresses both of these issues:
Increasing medical malpractice insurance rates are making it harder for doctors to practice medicine22 and raising the costs of health care for everyone.23 Barack Obama and Joe Biden will strengthen antitrust laws to prevent insurers from overcharging physicians for their malpractice insurance. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will also promote new models for addressing physician errors that improve patient safety, strengthen the doctor patient relationship, and reduce the need for malpractice suits.
The insurance business today is dominated by a small group of large companies that has been gobbling up their rivals. In recent years, for-profit companies have bought up not-for-profit insurers around the country. There have been over 400 health care mergers in the last 10 years and just two companies dominate a full third of the national market.
These changes were supposed to make the industry more efficient, but instead premiums have skyrocketed, increasing over 87 percent over the past six years.25 Over the same time period, insurance administrative overhead has been the fastest-growing component of health spending. The 2007 Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System reported that between 2000 and 2005, administrative overhead – including both administrative expenses and insurance industry profits – increased 12.0 percent per year, 3.4 percentage points faster than the average health expenditure growth of 8.6 percent. And while health care costs continue to rise for families, CEOs of these insurance companies have received multi-million dollar bonuses.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will prevent companies from abusing their monopoly power through unjustified price increases. In markets where the insurance business is not competitive, their plan will force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits and administration. http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/He…

By: The Shoe In Your Face

The Shoe In Your Face — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:33:48 +0000

I was a child in the 60′s and my parents managed health care for me. They could actually pay for it.
But you have your logic upside down. Go back to the Nixon days when Tricky decided that it would be a good idea for HMO’s to become “for profit” organizations.
The regulation that prevented this was Removed and the rest is history. And it is a history of one of the greatest rip-offs in the history of money!
No sane person questions that doctors should be paid well for their services. The problem lies with the insuarance, hospital and drug companies.
They should be taken out and shot along with their politicians who support their evil empire.
And also, any qualified person wanting to become a doctor should be allowed to do so. Medical school should be paid for by society. We can’t have too many doctors!
I know that that would tear off the doors of you guys exclusive club but so be it. You will not starve. With plenty of affordable doctors, people will start getting things like preventitive care and you will be busy as a beaver and make plenty.

By: Green Pagan 4.0

Green Pagan 4.0 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:03:37 +0000

A better question would be:
What has Privatization and Deregulation done to help health insurance provide for people who need it?
You are living in a fantasy land if you think we had “less” regulation on healthcare when you were young…
Religious charities cannot provide healthcare… that would be completely wrong in the USA… It would create an environment where you had to be “christian” in order to get treated and gays and pregnant teens would be demonized and left to die.

By: TroubleM

TroubleM — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:19:06 +0000

Just think if 200 people were willing to pay $2000 dollars a year to a doctor to treat them . Thats less then one patient a day and the doc would make $200,000. a year after taxes . . So we could make it $3,000.. to pay a couple of nurse well and $4000 to cover equipment . Thats just to see one person a day . Now I am sure a Doc could see more then one a day and lower the rate to say $500. a year easy . Then he could see 10 people a day