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On 31-8-2009 18:10, Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay wrote:
> Something that I've talked about for years is the possibility of having
> health cooperatives as a means of getting insurance. Because they are
> non-profit and member-owned, YOU (collectively) would decide what (and who?)
> the insurance should cover. Yes, these are getting a little bit of
> attention lately.
>
> But. I'm not sure this really solves the problem. Why are healthcare costs
> rising? Insurance. Maybe lawyers factor into this to some extent, but the
> real reason is that we HAVE insurance. When you take your car in to get new
> brakes (assuming you don't do it yourself), they tell you "Oh, you need new
> rotors, yada yada. $350." At that point, I say, "I've got a buddy that
> will simply change my pads and it'll cost me $40 plus a 6-pack of beer."
> Ok, you don't want that buddy doing your heart transplant, but the idea is
> the same. If my auto-insurance covered the $350, would I care? Heck no!
> Change all 4 rotors, and charge me $700. Why should I care?
Living in a country where more is covered by insurance then in the US, I
can tell you this is not how it works. I must admit at first glance it
sounds plausible, like most conspiracy theories.
Yet I simply don't want the dentist to pull my teeth if not absolutely
necessary. Moreover preventive medicine is also insured. In fact you can
pretty much get away with not insuring for extensive dental work because
a checkup every 6 months or so will prevent that from happening in most
cases.
Another factor that you did not include is the professional standard of
doctors. In general they won't do unnecessary procedures. Those few that
do and are found out are kicked out of the profession. Not because of
the fraud, though that is a factor, but for unprofessional conduct.
The trick of insurance is to punish those who let unnecessary procedures
happen. If your car insurance pays such bogus repairs as in your
example, it has to raise the amount people have to pay for the
insurance. That will result in people going to other companies and there
fore a loss of money. Another thing is that regularly someone brings a
car with the same problem to different garages and publishes what they
charge. Most firms don't like it when they appear in a paper showing
that they charge 10 times a much than a competitor.
If you talk about wasting money in hospitals, they should get financial
incentives (from the government) if they reduce the number of stays in
the hospital and if they reduce the amount of MRIs etc. etc.
In general our media are focussed on finding out if and why our health
system fails and then the government often tries to patch that. For any
particular problem that may take some years but people know that they
are watched and often repair things before we even need a new law.
Unfortunately for you, such a system requires journalists and a
government that is not influenced too much by the current players with
money. So it is extremely difficult to change your health system if you
do not at the same time reduce the influence of big companies on your
broadcasting companies and your politicians. (I originally wanted to
write "if you don't stop selling your political offices to the highest
bidder", but you might be offended if I put it that way).
(Ok, I know it is not as ideal as I tried to sketch above, but still our
health care system works better and is cheaper than that in the US. I.e.
for the general people like me, not for the very rich of course)
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