"He resigned as Chief Executive of Columbia/HCA in 1997 amid a controversy over the company's business and Medicare billing practices; the company ultimately admitted to fourteen felonies and agreed to pay the federal government over $600 million;" Let's see....how about a guy that put 50 million of his own money into running for governor? If not him....then certainly someone he previously worked closely with did something wrong to cost their company 600 million dollars in fines.....how about guys like that?
Our illustrious guv of Florida is the guy who at least rubbed shoulders with....worked closely with....the crooks who would fleece medicare and bring those 14 criminal charges and those hefty fines. Of course...when the former CEO of the company was asked about it....his response was... " I know nuttin...I seen nuttin...muddafugga"
Hmmmm....and here I thought you were just telling us about the bloodsucking insurance carriers exercising their monopolistic pricing powers as evidenced by their excessive 5.7% margins? Now you want us to believe it is the fault of a guy who hasn't been in the business in any meaningful way for over a decade? It seems the boogieman moves very quickly....
"There are so many many hands in the till otherwise.....hard to pinpoint hands in the till.....and it's those guys....the Rick Scott clones and cronies.... that need to be squeezed out of the mix" I believe I'm pretty general there. And as I said before 5.7% is relevant to the billions upon billions of revenue collected. In any event you do show your hand and it's clear which side you are on. You obviously think everyone involved is on the up and up and all profits and wealth attained is not only justifiable but should only get bigger at the higher cost of the healthcare provided....damned be the middle class that can't afford this nonsense.
Nonsense....if there is fraud, send them to jail. We have laws against such abuse. Enforce the law. Fixing prices and arbitrarily capping returns is an economic disaster ..... you say if somebody doesn't make enough money, they should leave....that being the case who is going to replace them if their expected returns are inadequate to attract the investment capital necessary to replace them???? The answer is .... nobody. Well done....if you're suggesting that 5.7% is excessive, then you will have no providers except Uncle Sam and that would be a disaster.....imagine a Medicare II, only several multiples larger.....the armaggedon scenario The only thing 5.7% is evidence of is the complete lack of monopolistic and predatory pricing power....companies that enjoy the benefits of monopolistic pricing power and predatory pricing would have fat margins and bloated returns on investment....health insurance carriers have neither.....it seems that they are using all their premiums to pay for escalating healthcare costs.....you couldn't more off base if you tried....
So BT....the surgeons and drug companies and insurance companies absolutely cannot afford to make any less and most assuredly will be sending more increases our way. Do you propose we halt expenditures on everything else and spend every dime on healthcare? Or just maybe.....just maybe the provisions in Obamacare that force some uninsured people to invest money in some form of healthcare might be what the doctor ordered?
So now you've moved on to include not only price controls and arbitrary caps on max returns but also wage controls for docs? So what do you think is the max a doc can make and how should that compare to a dentist or a lawyer? What other recommendations does your politburo central planning committee have for the conduct of the economy comrade?
BT...I've hit a wall here thanks to you. I thought good ole fashioned price competition would be a remedy that might work for decreasing the cost of healthcare but you have indicated to me that no one in the equation can afford to take less.....not less than the 5.7% for the insurers.....not less for the skilled providers like surgeons......nursing is already a suck ass occupation ( my wife hates her job and wants to change from a job that pays her 32.00 per hour ).....not less for drug manufacturers who need every single ounce of profit to heep up that research......and there is no fraud to be cut out of the pie or excessive profits or wealth building and now that Obama wants to tax the uninsured into getting healthcare coverage even that is not a viable solution according to the right and they want to repeal it. Given all of the above what good would it do at all to open up buying insurance across state lines? You could have 100 companies to choose from and no one would be competitive because of all of the factors that you have listed for me BT. I guess there is no solution.....right? We are on our way to becoming the United States of Healthcare!
Competition does work wonders and no doubt it would increase a bit if you could cross state lines. BT's point is that 5.7% is NOT "obscene profits". He agreed that increased competition would be better but pointed out that it is being inhibited by governtment regulation. Competition would force insurance companies to become leaner and meaner to maintain their 5.7%. It would force them to look harder for ways to cut costs and (shudder) cut unnecessary usage. It would make for larger insurance pools, which should decrease premiums for those who don't work for large corporations or the gov't. There is a certain lack of competition in the medical field (there didn't use to be) due to government and third party payer control over reimbursements to hospitals and doctors...they are told what they will get paid. I fear that that bridge has been crossed and there is no turning back...however the difference in your philosophy and ours is that we (at least I) feel that increased competition is the better solution. You feel that more price and wage control and government regulation is the solution (while at the same time bemoaning the fact that there isn't any competition).
You've got me all wrong Stu....or at least you haven't been reading my posts. My last post was just a surrender to what BT has been espousing in that everyone in the healthcare business is above board and already at the bottom of their scale profit wise. Hmmmm....I like your ideas a lot and as I say I firmly believe that true competition does indeed reduce prices in every industry but consider that if you force people to make the cuts as you propose then somewhere somebody is not getting the profit that BT says they need to continue to exist and somebody else is givng up some wealth.. Since there really is no greed or anything going on that's excessive if you removed all regulations how could any of the parties involved afford to decrease prices? They are already so lean and mean it ain't funny. Will they bill under the government mandated prices? I don't see how that's possible accordiing to what I am told here. Damn......this is getting convoluted ain't it?
Dave, if I take care of my car, I can keep it looking great for many years to come with very little effort. If I do nothig to it, don't wash it, don't wax it, don't keep it in a garage, in ten years, it will take a lot of money, time, and effort to fix it. Can we agree on that? The situation we have with healthcare did not happen overnight. It started with "The New Deal" that was the start of our welfare nation we have today. That was the start of the parasitic nature of the beast. Before the depression, people worked for a living. When hand outs started, the work mentality laxed a little. It has been getting more laxed over the years to the point it is today. We have people that use emergency rooms as their doctor's office because they have not strived to better themselves and are adding to healthcare costs. The fix is not going to be quick because the daily maintenance has not been kept up. It is going to take years to get people back to work, ween them off of government handouts, and reduce the parasites. There will be low income people through no fault of their own that need help. I UNDERSTAND THAT. I do not understand a system that pays people, black, white, or purple, to lay in bed with their legs spread wide open spitting out babies every 9 minths to get a larger check. You want to find the few issues that are out there that are a much smaller percentage of the costs of healthcare than the actual problem. Another analogy??? You are worried about the one #2 pencil size hole in the wooden schooner that the little boy is trying to plug with his pinkie. Meanwhile, termites have eaten millions of pinholes that are leaking thousands of times more water than the one hole the boy is trying to plug.
And I hate the fact that they are pidgeon holed in some cases to keep the status quo. With wages as low as they are on the bottom end and benefits coming at an outrageous cost some people decide it's better to stay out of the low wage market because they cannot afford to work as crazy as that sounds. To me there are two steps to alleviating our healthcare pricing issues. First and foremost....in spite of the fact some here say it's impossible......you make healthcare insurers and providers adhere to a process that is completely open to competition....real competition unlimited in any form. Knowing what I know about healthcare from my wife I don't think any of us want a system that throws out regulations for quality and safety.....trust me.....that's just not a good idea. But if we let the market be the market....really invite open competition....then the quality can still be there and the riif-raff and greed will be weeded out by necessity for survival and then the big money investors ( note" greedy mf-ers ) will either stay in for what it's worth or head elsewhere but at least those who are left will be buying in to the system as it is and accept the profits that are available.....and really as I have said my entire business career has been spent in that type of market environment. Transportation is a tough racket unless you can value-add for the services provided and if you don't like the pricing that you have to live with....that the market provides.... it's tough **** because somebody else is always willing to take your place. The second step I alluded to above is what I think Obamacare strives to do and that is to get more people paying whatever they can afford for the healthcare they do receive instead of the US gov't. footing the bill though that process certainly seems to be easier said than done so we'll see how that pans out.
Dave, I can agree on a few ponts with stipulations here: 1) Open competition... not regulation 2) Everyone buys insurance... not by regulation, but by removing the free healthcare that you and I have been paying for all along.
Absolute competition......no ******** and nothing that regulates it. The only regulations that I feel have to be there are to protect the quality and consistency of the care provided for the money spent by the individual. Not saying every care facility has to be the same as the other.....but the care has to be safe and with good intentions and of course the drugs have to be safety regulated. Otherwise I do think Obamacare tries to take that step in getting more unisured people to pay for the care they receive but low end income people will never have the money for today's healthcare out of pocket expenses unless they possibly did have a lower tier of care to choose from. What lower tier means I don't know....it has to be safe and effective in it's intent.
the regulation you speak of is redundant. Just ask doctors about malpractice insurance. Lawyers take care of mandating quality... sometimes making those mandates a little overboard but still, no government regulation required. Obamacare is not needed. Take away the freebies and those well meaning people in the low income sector will find a way to afford healthcare because it will be less expensive due to the freebies no longer having to be paid for.
You have not come close to an accurate assessment of my position.....just more of your stupid and false characterizations......one thing that is a fact of economic sciences.....competition will not and cannot reduce the market price below the cost of the of the good or service being provided.....at that level, there is no incentive to provide the product and there will be no providers ...Obama' s policies are driving key medical innovators and their capital sources overseas.....and we've only just begun.....get a clue libs, this is a slippery slope to economic decay
I contend that since we have not seen much in way of true competition in the healthcare industry that once we were to get a process in place that would ensure steep competition then we would weed out the snakes. Let the greedy bastard snakes go to Europe. I want to see some real competition....to see what it can do to this industry pricewise. We can't just keep doing what we're doing when comes to healthcare....the 99% does not have the ability to keep feeding the monster. I was speaking with a very good friend yesterday who has been visiting and she is a successful mediator for divorce cases in SE Florida....and a single mom. Her insurance premiums run $1150.00 per month for just her and her son and she has a high deductible. She has found that once providers know she has insurance they charge more for the service and she winds up paying a crap load more for that service because of her coverage's high out of pocket annual expense. She endeavors not to even tell providers she has insurance so that she can pay for the service herself direct and keep the insurance company completely out of the equation. Trouble is though that the providers do not want her to pay direct because they get to charge more if she has insurance. She is furious with this system as it is and by the way she makes well over 6 figures and still the expense of healthcare is of huge concern to her. When you compare what she is going through to an average American family of four making less than half of what she earns where in the hell are these people supposed to have the money to pay for such exorbitant ******** healthcare??? Like I said....screw those snakes....and bon voyage. I can see that the people with the most at stake in the financial investment sector would be the ones to voraciously defend the status quo in healthcare and in any other sector in which they get their grubby hands on other people's money. Just like in transporttation the more people who have their hands in the pie the more difficult it is to be competitively priced.