Don't get me started on cell phones. I will be perpetually under "contract" with Verizon for 4 cell phones. They can pretty much gouge me any way they choose because it's hell trying to coordinate an out for four different phones.
An industry that has it's leader showing a 5.7% profit margin is not an industry that is capable of pricing anything in predatory manner....it is an industry struggling to maintain its ability to invest in its business to enable it maintain its competitive position, keep its industry standing, provide services to its customers in a satisfactory manner, retain its employees, stay in business and provide a return to its capital providers that will induce them to continue to invest......no matter what it's scale...the larger the scale, the larger are the requirements to invest to keep the doors open and customers happy.....it's clear that you don't get that at all.....
Thanks Sid. Dave just proves that he reads nothig here. He simply pukes out socialist ideals. This after I stated: Although, going back over my numbers, I was a liitle off. Their gross receipts would have to be 17.549 trillion with expenses of 16.549 trillion and would take them 16.549 years to bank one year of operating expenses. Name me another "HEALTHY" business that takes that long to bank one year of operating capital. Believe me, you want your insurance company to be healthy to keep paying your health care.
That is what I said Tom. I admitted I do not know the revenues involved for the healthcare industry but that the 5.7% margin would equate to a trillion dollars profit in the oil industry and even that was a suggested number although I'll bet I'm pretty close on that one anyway. Perplexing is the debate here. The direction the conservatives seem to be coming from is that there is room for higher prices.......let the free market work it's magic. Do you honestly think that without some major reform that healthcare expenses for a family of 4 will go on a downward trend without any help?
This is a capitolistic society Dave. By deffinition, prices are set by what the market will bear. You preach and desire socialistic society ideals. England and Ireland, where they pay 48% income tax is the place for you. Quit bitching about our way of life and go live where you will be happy.
And that is an unrealistic remark when it comes to healthcare. It's mostly true with gas prices too but with fuel prices you can choose to stay home on the weekends anyway if you so choose...car pool to work etc. although most do not make that choice. But avoiding or declining healthcare when you must have it.....I don't think "what the market will bear" applies at all because you don't have much of a choice. When you were stung by bees and were in a life threatening situation if you didn't think you could afford the healthcare necessary at the emergency room would you have had a choice? Really??
Absolutely Dave. That shows your ignorance about the industry you are campaigning against. Emergency rooms must give care based upon need not the ability to pay. The ambulance preps the victim and transports without any idea of insurance unless you volunteer it. The ER is forced to take you in regardless of insurance and at the very least, stabalize and transport. It is that socialistic approach that puts healthcare at an artificial high price to begin with. Those with insurance are paying for those that can't afford it. It will only get worse with Obummercare. There is your boogie man... not the healthcare industry, but the low income and no income "goldcard" people (the slave set of voters for the democratic party) that show up at the emergency room for a headache they have had for 2 weeks but will not go to the doctor's office because they have to pay the doctor in the office before being seen. It is the socialistic tendencies forced upon the healthcare industry that has mandated the higher helathcare costs.
A doctor friend sent me an article about healthcare costs. The article suggests that while the costs pf procedures have increased, a far greater increase is in the amount of procedures that people have done. My brother's family of five includes four stone-cold hypochondriacs. And two of them are RNs! Any time one of them has a day off they have some kind of test or procedure done. They get CT scans and MRIs like I get haircuts. They have a Lazy Susan on their kitchen table that must have 200 prescription bottles on it.
Tom...if you have a healthcare plan....and let's suppose like most these days it has high cost premiums and high co-pays and deductibles... your little visit to the ER for bee stings will result in today's "market will bear" situation of pretty hefty out of pocket expense....probably to the tune of around $900 to $1100 by the time you're done. And you will be hounded mercilessly and your credit rating will suffer if you don't pay it. Now imagine for a second that you make far less in income....but more what the average American family brings in and now your family has an $1100.00 bill to pay from your bee sting incident.....or else. Is that even possible for you to visualize or has your income level jaded you to those realities of the plight of the average American? I used to be like you too....maybe a little insensitive to what was happening to others not so fortunate but reality has slapped me in the face since Dec. 2008. Reality ain't pretty.
In an emergency situation I would go to the ER whether I could afford it right then or not. Do you realize that at my present income level, I could have made that ER visit and paid $5 per month and there is nothing the hospital could have done about it? There are options for everyone. People in higher income brackets contribute to charities that help the less fortunate. They do that because they want to help out. They dispise being told that they MUST pay without CHOICE to cover someone's medical expenses. I am a capitolist and there is nothing you can do to sway my opinion over to socialism. You can be a subject of the state if you wish. I will fight to remain a citizen.
Bent: SCOTUS’ Obamacare Decision Gives the IRS Even More Powers Than Previously Thought Kind of like IRS agents performing colonoscopies. (FOX Business) — IRS officials on background tell FOX Business the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on health reform gives the IRS even more powers than previously understood. The IRS now gets to know about a small business’s entire payroll, the level of their insurance coverage — and it gets to know the income of not just the primary breadwinner in your house, but your entire family’s income, in order to assess/collect the mandated tax. Plus, it gets to share your personal info with all sorts of government agencies, insurance companies and employers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. “We expect even more lien and levy powers,” an IRS official says. Even the Taxpayer Advocate is deeply concerned. The IRS army will inexorably increase in size, too. The IRS will now add new agents to hunt down tax cheats, as it has been budgeted to spend $303.5 million building a new system, erected on the back of its old system, to oversee the effects of the health law, including making sure people get the new tax credits they deserve under the law. As for the new IRS workers, the Government Accountability Office said the total will be about 4,500, with nearly 4,000 slated for enforcement. On the $303.5 million for health care, the GAO said the IRS will “continue the development of new systems and modifications of existing systems as well as other IRS enforcement systems for health reform.” Throughout, the IRS will be the agency enforcing the law, collecting these mandate penalties, as well as determining whether individuals buy “adequate” health coverage, and whether small businesses provide “affordable” coverage to workers under the new law. However, Nina E. Olson, who runs the Taxpayer Advocate Office [TAO], a federal IRS overseer, has warned the new health law may require more IRS intrusions on taxpayer privacy, to determine whether individuals got appropriate health coverage, and whether small businesses provide “affordable” coverage, all of which is defined by the government. That’s because the health-reform law’s individual mandate requires almost all legal residents of the United States to have “adequate” health-care coverage, as determined by the federal government. And it requires businesses of all sizes must provide “affordable” coverage as defined by the federal government. Health reform’s insurance mandate says if you do not have “adequate” insurance, you’ll have to pay a fine as part of your tax return. If your business doesn’t provide “affordable” coverage, that business may have to pay a fine to the IRS, too, as part of its tax return filings.