My Opinion on Health Care

[choosefoster]

Let it remain privatized; get rid of the insurance altogether. If we get rid of the insurance, the costs will go down. Trust me, if the government gets involved with the insurance, the price will be higher even than it is now.

[loupgarou]

Considering that the insurance lobby is the biggest in the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, I don't know how you can ban health insurers. But I do agree with the sentiment. Out helathcare dollars are supporting a huge insurance bureaucracy.

I do want to see competition and a free market among health care providers. We don't really have that now, because information on prices and quality of services is not available to consumers. (O.K., there are internet sites that have reviews of specific doctors, and you are free to go to the courthouse and look up the lawsuits against particular doctors. As far as prices, you don't get your bill until afterward, and except for the simplest services, doctors & hospitals will refuse to give an estimate like auto repair businesses are required to.)

[loupgarou]

On second thought, while converting medical care to free-market competition with openness as to price and quality would be desirable, and that most of the cost of medical care comes from overpricing and lack of competition, suppose there was competition with no health insurance permitted?

Nobody pays for their own health care now. Well, almost nobody. Only if there is health insurance in some form do hospitals and doctors collect most of their fees. Most patients who are self-insuring do not pay. Which means that a component of everyone's bill for medical services -- like credit card interest -- is a penalty charged to the rest of us for non-payers.

The average family has a savings rate of near zero, except for retirement plans. How would they promprly pay for even minor surgery?

Thinking about the above, the crisis in medical care pervades the economy. To put in place a better system means changing all our financial practices and habits. Right now. we have a consumer-driven economy. Most all our nation's economic growth comes from a blind-stupid consumer spending binge and running up credit card debt. Unless we are made to pay premiums for health insurance, we won't be able to pay for healthcare as it is needed.

So, yes! We should pay for medical care as it is needed, and to be able to shop for such care based on price and quality. Let there be a free and open market in medical care. But to do that, we have to morph into a society with a 20% savings rate apart from retirement, and to only buy things that are absolutely needed. That is not the economy that has been fostered by government and its citizens. We would need a massive reeducation and restructuring of the economy for self-insurance to be practical.