Judah McAuley <ju...@wiredotter.com> wrote: > > I agree that the consolidation of health insurance companies has led > to fewer choices and that the combined companies wield an unfair > amount of influence over providers and do everything in their power to > discourage competition, reform and meaningful change in healthcare > delivery. Insurance profits also certainly play a role in the cost of > healthcare to the end consumer. However, and this is a big however, > the rise in non-insurance costs in healthcare is huge. Just > astounding. >
Therein lies the problem: Insurance companies simply react to their costs and the customer who, in this case, is not you! It's your employer. You want lower cost and higher quality but you're not the customer so we've got a market misaligned with our needs. Here's an example: Let's say you go to the grocery store, buy produce, and it's tainted. If you're smart you won't go back and neither will anyone else. What if you couldn't trust any food store? Then the entire market would be broken. If we follow your suggestion for healthcare then we'd simply have the government take over food market. If your car suddenly accelerates, have the government take over car companies. If a plane crashes ... have the government run all airlines. See the trend? Government's role is to *regulate* markets, not own and run them. WARNING: I'm going to get controversial and a bit detailed. That said, capitalism won't work in healthcare. There. I've said it. Why? Our healthcare system is modular, but our bodies require integrated services. i.e. in one care "episode" we might need treatment from doctors, clinics, hospitals, vendors, pharma, etc, etc. and all of those run on software! All of those businesses try to improve profits through incremental product improvements, just like your software biz. When they do, they sell those product improvements to their best customers ... for a higher price! In total those product bumps push costs up by about 6-10% *per product* as well increase overall spend. And that brings us to Judah's point, which is the problem. So I will say that "public vs. private" was the wrong question for me to bring up; the right question is component vs. integrated healthcare delivery systems. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:334766 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
