there is no free market for Health Care in this country....

[WCGreen]

Hasn't been since the Insurance Companies started to inject themselves between the provider and the patient and then employers started to provide insurance.

It sounds like a great idea, having insurance companies involved, in order to spread the risk around.

But it actually skews the free market in that the shareholders of the insurance companies are more important in the mix than the care of those insured.

Then the shareholders of the company that is providing the insurance to the workers have to be considered so you have at least two profit centers in between the patient and the health care provider.

The market forces from three profit centers, the entity providing the care is most certainly a profit center as well, are skewing the cost of medicine that is provided and also what kind of medical care is provided.

The reason the conservatives are so adamantly against a Single Payer plan is not because it will provide inferior health care to the people but that two profit potentials are cut out of the mix.

[Pharaoh]

1. Healthcare for profit is insane

It is abusing those most in need of care.

[WCGreen]

3. that is the naked truth that health is treated as a commodity.

[SmileyRose]

27. No it isn't - Medical care is treated as a commodity and it should be.

Medical care is a service provided by a trained professional who deserves to be paid for their services. The people who created and manufactured the various gizmos that go into providing medicare deserve just payment as well. They provide a purchasable commodity and should expect a fair price for it. there was a time when country doctors bartered payment in food and services, but even then his services were a commodity.

The problem we have is one of access and expectation. Americans did not always expect cutting edge expensive medical care services and products delivered to everyone who asked. Poor parents of babies born with serious and expensive medical issues were more likely to bury the child than spend the child's entire lifetime in and out of doctor's offices and hospitals. Senior citizens died younger and were therefore not in need of heart bypass, joint replacements, cutting edge cancer treatments, and long stays in medical facilities or living centers.

Add to this the difficulties of access to basic medical care for the masses, because greed and tax law has exploded the margins expected by investors. Less profitable, or loss leaders in medical care are no longer tolerated. Clinics in poor neighborhoods and rural areas are long gone, emergency rooms are closing. Too many doctors are bound by insurance contracts to refuse cash customers. Without basic care small medical issues become expensive problems - thus compounding the financial issues with providing medical care.

So yes, there are serious problems that have to be addressed. However, medical care was always a commodity and it should be.

[FiveGoodMen]

6. Exactly!

No excuse for it whatsoever.

[midnight]

8. There must be a legal way to end this....

[HereSince1628]

10. I'd say it's immoral, I'd even say evil but I wouldn't say insane

I dislike the notion that something is 'insane' because it is abusive.

In general the mentally ill are not more likely to be violent or abusive than the rest of the population.

[SharonAnn]

17. An they have an anti-trust exemption! That's not free market, is it?

[WCGreen]

18. That is the killer...

[dflprincess]

19. What's truly insane is having a for profit middleman control access to care

At least doctors and hospitals actually provide a service. The insurance companies who exist only to make money and make that money by finding ways to deny care, bring nothing to the table.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

20. Sadly true.

[Mimosa]

2. Sad and TRUE! n/t

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Exactly.

Two profit potentials are cut out of the mix.

That is the crux, the heart of their opposition.

Thank you.

Recommended.

[mdmc]

5. r

[Curmudgeoness]

7. Single Payer was doomed because it would

put private insurance companies out of business, and they spent a huge amount of money making sure they bought enough of the politicians off to defeat it. Until there are honest politicians (an oxymoron), we will never be able to have substantial health care reform.

[Kennah]

12. Completely untrue

There is private health insurance all across Europe. They don't make the insane profit levels of companies here in the U.S., but they do alright.

[Curmudgeoness]

14. Doing alright is not the American way. Health insurance is big

business, and insane profits are the name of the game.

I am sure there would still be private insurance, just as we have supplemental policies now for Medicare recipients. But that would not be enough for the insurance companies.

[Pharaoh]

15. Not just the insurance co.s

But the big drug makers/big pharma and a bought and paid for FDA,

[socialist_n_TN]

9. Cogent and true observation.........

And the more profit centers that are involved in the mix, the higher the costs. In my view, profit should not be a consideration in health care.

[The Magistrate]

11. You Are Quite Right, Sir

And profit, in health care, is pure cost; it simply increases the price paid.

[girl gone mad]

13. No free market as long as the insurers have atitrust exemption.

Yet another reason why the mandate is absurd.

[TheMadMonk]

16. The problem is not in the concept but in the way its implementation...

...has been allowed to mutate/evolve under the pressure of "free market" forces.

Once upon a time (not that long ago) insurance organisations were mutual funds, beholden to and benefiting only their members. Unfortunately, unless you were in the same class as "National Mutual" or "Prudential", regional disasters had a way of breaking smaller concerns.

Equally unfortunately, the solution found, while touted as "spreading the risk", in fact offloaded virtually all of the risk onto the policy holders.

Now those policy holders are nothing but consumers and their premiums are now simply the purchase price of a "service". Their money now serves to fund dividends for investors who view every successful claim as a loss of income. Sadly the law is on their side on this point.

[slipslidingaway]

21. We need to stop pretending that conservatives are against SP and Dems are in favor of SP...

it was clear from the beginning when SP advocates were excluded from the HC summit in 2009, then it just continued through the hearings.

If we want to spread the risk around then there is no sense having the most needy, seniors and the poor who do not have access to preventative care, being partially subsidized by the government and then leave the most profitable segment to the private insurance companies.

The Dems have kept SP off the table - we need to be honest about that fact.

I do not care about the "60 votes" the Dems should at least advance the cause instead of blocking not for profit HC for all. They had a perfect opportunity with all the boomers retiring and the Medicare enrollees increasing from 46 million to 79 million over the next two decades to bring this issue to the people, instead they buried the issue. But we'll hear about it again when they need to reduce the deficit and cut entitlement spending.

Tired of hearing about the conservatives when our own party sold us out.

[WCGreen]

22. I used the word conservative as a catch all for the right in both parties...

[slipslidingaway]

24. Thanks :) n/t

[Vinca]

23. Good points.

Share holders are more important than the people formerly known as "patients."

[Honeycombe8]

25. So true! This is hogwash that the Repubs keep spinning! I told my righter Dad...

that the health care system is NOT a free market! I think that was the first time he'd heard that. I hope he's giving that some thought.

When the Repubs say free market...they mean free market among and between the SELLERS, not free market for the consumers.

[WCGreen]

26. The individual has no choice in the matter.

Just think how many people are underemployed because they need health insurance.

Think about all the people that are misallocated because they need health insurance.

It's effects are felt all the way across the economy.